MARY, MARY

 BY JAMES STEPHENS

 INTRODUCTION BY PADRAIC COLUM

 BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC. PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

 _Printed in the United States of America_

 1912, BY SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED)

 TO

 BETHEL SOLOMONS, M. B. 

 MARY, MARY

INTRODUCTION

If any of James Stephens' books might be thought to have need of anIntroduction it would be the delightful story that is called "Mary, Mary" on one side of the Atlantic Ocean and "The Charwoman's Daughter"on the other. It was written in 1910, when the author was known as thepoet of "Insurrections" and the writer of a few of the mordant studiesthat belong to a later book, "Here Are Ladies. "

In 1911 four people came together to establish "The Irish Review. "They were David Houston, Thomas MacDonagh, James Stephens and thepresent writer. James Stephens mentioned that he could hand over somestuff for publication. The "stuff" was the book in hand. It came outas a serial in the second number with the title "Mary, A Story, " ranfor a twelvemonth and did much to make the fortune (if a review thatperished after a career of four years ever had its fortune made) of"The Irish Review. "

From the publication of its first chapters the appeal of "Mary"was felt in two or three countries. Mary Makebelieve was not justa fictional heroine--she was Cinderella and Snow-white and allthe maidens of tradition for whom the name of heroine is big andburthensome. With the first words of the story James Stephens put usinto the attitude of listeners to the household tale of folk-lore. "Mary, Mary" is the simplest of stories: a girl sees this and that, meets a Great Creature who makes advances to her, is humiliated, finds a young champion and comes into her fortune--that is all thereis to it as a story. But is it not enough to go with Mary to Stephens'Green and watch the young ducks "pick up nothing with the greatesteagerness and swallow it with the greatest delight, " and after thatto notice that the ring priced One Hundred Pounds has been takenfrom the Jewellers' window, and then stand outside the theatre withher and her mother and make up with them the story of the plays fromthe pictures on the posters?--plays of mystery and imagination theymust have surely been. 

Then, of course, there is always Mary's mother; and Mrs. Makebelieve, with her beaked nose, and her eyes like pools of ink, and hereagle-flights of speech would give a backbone to any story. Mrs. Makebelieve has and holds all the privileges of the poor and thelonely. Moreover, she is the eternal Charwoman. "She could not remainfor any length of time in peoples' employment without being troubledby the fact that these folk had houses of their own and were actuallyemploying her in a menial capacity. " Mrs. Makebelieve is, I think, atypical figure. She is the incarnation of the pride and liveliness andimaginative exuberance that permit the poor to live. 

How poor are Mary and Mrs. Makebelieve? We know their lack by themeasure of their desire. Mrs. Makebelieve, always generous, would havepaid her servants Ten Shillings per Week each, and their Board. And weknow that she had often observed desolate people dragging themselvesthrough the streets, standing to glare through the windows of bakeriesand confectioners' shops, with little children in some of their arms, and that thinking of such things every morsel she ate would havechoked her were it not for her own hunger. By our being brought todesire what Mary and her mother desired we come to know the thingsthey lacked. 

Yes, poverty was the state in which Mary and Mrs. Makebelieve existed, but freedom was the other side of that poverty. They had not to setthe bounds of realization upon their wishes. They were not shut off, as too many of us are, from the adventure and the enchantment that arein things. A broken mirror upon the wall of a bare room! It is, afterall, that wonder of wonders, a thing. But one cannot convey to thosewho have not known the wonder, how wonderful a mere thing is! A childwho has watched and watched the face of a grandfather's clock, stoppedbefore he was born, feels this wonder. To grown folk and to thosewho have many possessions the things they own are lumber, some moreconvenient, some more decorative than others. But to those who havefew possessions things are familiars and have an intimate history. Hence it is only the poor or only unspoiled children that have thefull freedom of things--who can enter into their adventure and theirenchantment. Mary and her mother have this franchise. And for thisreason also "Mary, Mary" has an inner resemblance to a folk-tale. Forthe folk-tale, shaped as it has been by the poor and by unspoiledpeople, reveals always the adventure and the enchantment of things. An old lamp may be Aladdin's. A comb might kill a false queen. A keymay open the door of a secret chamber. A dish may be the supremepossession of a King. The sense of the uniqueness of things--the sensethat the teller of the folk-tale has always, and that such a poet ofthe poor as Burns has often, is in "Mary, Mary. " And there is in ittoo the zest that the hungry--not the starved but the hungry--have forlife. James Stephens says of the young man who became Mary's champion, "His ally and stay was hunger, and there is no better ally for anyman: that satisfied and the game is up; for hunger is life, ambition, good will and understanding, while fulness is all those negativeswhich culminate in greediness, stupidity, and decay. "

The scene of the story is that grey-colored, friendly capital--Dublin. It is not the tortuous, inimical, Aristotlian-minded Dublin of JamesJoyce's "Portrait of the Artist"--it is the Dublin of thesimple-hearted Dubliner: Dublin with its great grey clouds and itspoising sea-birds, with its hills and its bay, with its streets thateveryone would avoid and with its other streets that everyonepromenades; with its greens and its park and its river-walks--Dublin, always friendly. It is true that there are in it those who, as thePoliceman told Mary, are born by stealth, eat by subterfuge, drinkby dodges, get married by antics, and slide into death by strange, subterranean passages. Well, even these would be kindly and humorousthe reader of "Mary, Mary" knows. James Stephens has made Dublin aplace where the heart likes to dwell. 

 And would to God that I to-day Saw sunlight on the Hill of Howth, And sunlight on the Golden Spears, And sunlight out on Dublin Bay. 

So one who has known Dublin might well exclaim on reading "Mary, Mary"east or west of Eirinn. 

James Stephens brought a fresh and distinctive element into the newIrish literature--an imaginative exuberance that in its rush ofexpression became extravagant, witty, picturesque and lovely. His workbegan to appear about 1906. Like the rest of the young Irish writershe made his appearance in the weekly journal "Sinn Fein, " contributingto it his first poems and his mordant or extravagant essays and stories. At once he made a public for himself. His first poems were publishedin a volume called "Insurrections" and his public became a wide one. "Mary, Mary" brought out in 1912 was his first prose book. His next, theunclassifiable "Crock of Gold, " was given the De Polignac Prize in 1914. Since then he has published two other prose books--"Here Are Ladies" and"The Demi-Gods, " with three books of verse, "The Hill of Vision, " "Songsfrom the Clay, " and "The Rocky Road to Dublin. "

"Insurrections, " written just before "Mary, Mary, " has vividrevelations of personality. "I saw God--do you doubt it?" says Tomasan Buile in the "pub. "--

 I saw God. Do you doubt it? Do you dare to doubt it? I saw the Almighty Man. His hand Was resting on a mountain, and He looked upon the World and all about it: I saw Him plainer than you see me now, You mustn't doubt it. 

 He was not satisfied; His look was all dissatisfied. His beard swung on a wind far out of sight Behind the world's curve, and there was light Most fearful from His forehead, and He sighed, "That star went always wrong, and from the start I was dissatisfied. "

 He lifted up His hand-- I say He heaved a dreadful hand Over the spinning Earth, then I said "Stay, You must not strike it, God; I'm in the way; And I will never move from where I stand. " He said, "Dear child, I feared that you were dead, " And stayed His hand. 

His God is never a lonely God--he has need of humanity, and the quickchampion of humanity springs straight into the love of God. Such isthe intuition that is in all James Stephens' books. 

He is the only author I have ever known whose talk is like his books. The prodigality of humour, intuition and searching thought that heputs into his pages he also puts into what he says. And he is the onlyman I ever met who can sing his stories as well as tell them. Like therest of the Irish writers of to-day, what he writes has a sense ofspiritual equality as amongst all men and women--a sense of ademocracy that is inherent in the world. 

[Illustration: signature: Padraic Colum]

New York, September, 1917. 

MARY, MARY

I

Mary Makebelieve lived with her mother in a small room at the very topof a big, dingy house in a Dublin back street. As long as she couldremember she had lived in that top back room. She knew every crack inthe ceiling, and they were numerous and of strange shapes. Every spotof mildew on the ancient wall-paper was familiar. She had, indeed, watched the growth of most from a grayish shade to a dark stain, froma spot to a great blob, and the holes in the skirting of the walls, out of which at nighttime the cockroaches came rattling, she knewalso. There was but one window in the room, and when she wished tolook out of it she had to push the window up, because the grime ofmany years had so encrusted the glass that it was of no more than thedemi-semi-transparency of thin horn. When she did look there wasnothing to see but a bulky array of chimney-pots crowning a next-doorhouse, and these continually hurled jays of soot against her window;therefore, she did not care to look out often, for each time that shedid so she was forced to wash herself, and as water had to be carriedfrom the very bottom of the five-story house up hundreds and hundredsof stairs to her room, she disliked having to use too much water. 

Her mother seldom washed at all. She held that washing was veryunhealthy and took the natural gloss off the face, and that, moreover, soap either tightened the skin or made it wrinkle. Her own face wasvery tight in some places and very loose in others, and MaryMakebelieve often thought that the tight places were spots which hermother used to wash when she was young, and the loose parts werethose which had never been washed at all. She thought that she wouldprefer to be either loose all over her face or tight all over it, and, therefore, when she washed she did it thoroughly, and when sheabstained she allowed of no compromise. 

Her mother's face was the color of old, old ivory. Her nose was like agreat strong beak, and on it the skin was stretched very tightly, sothat her nose shone dully when the candle was lit. Her eyes were bigand as black as pools of ink and as bright as the eyes of a bird. Herhair also was black, it was as smooth as the finest silk, and whenunloosened it hung straightly down, shining about her ivory face. Herlips were thin and scarcely colored at all, and her hands were sharp, quick hands, seeming all knuckle when she closed them and all fingerswhen they were opened again. 

Mary Makebelieve loved her mother very dearly, and her mother returnedher affection with an overwhelming passion that sometimes surged intophysically painful caresses. When her mother hugged her for any lengthof time she soon wept, rocking herself and her daughter to and fro, and her clutch became then so frantic that poor Mary Makebelieve foundit difficult to draw her breath; but she would not for the world havedisturbed the career of her mother's love. Indeed, she found somepleasure in the fierceness of those caresses, and welcomed the painfar more than she reprobated it. 

Her mother went out early every morning to work, and seldom returnedhome until late at night. She was a charwoman, and her work was toscrub out rooms and wash down staircases. She also did cooking whenshe was asked, and needlework when she got any to do. She had madeexquisite dresses which were worn by beautiful young girls at ballsand picnics, and fine, white shirts that great gentlemen wore whenthey were dining, and fanciful waistcoats for gay young men, and silkstockings for dancing in--but that was a long time ago, because thesebeautiful things used to make her very angry when they were taken fromher, so that she cursed the people who came to take them away andsometimes tore up the dresses and danced on them and screamed. 

She used often to cry because she was not rich. Sometimes, when shecame home from work, she liked to pretend that she was rich; she wouldplay at imagining that some one had died and left her a great fortune, or that her brother Patrick had come back from America with vastwealth, and then she would tell Mary Makebelieve of the things sheintended to buy and do the very next day. Mary Makebelieve likedthat. .. . They were to move the first thing in the morning to a bighouse with a garden behind it full of fruit trees and flowers andbirds. There would be a wide lawn in front of the house to play lawntennis in and to walk with delicately fine young men with fair facesand white hands, who would speak in the French language and bow oftenwith their hats almost touching the ground. There were to be twelveservants--six of them men servants and six of them women servants--whowould instantly do as they were bidden and would receive ten shillingseach per week and their board; they would also have two nights free inthe week, and would be very well fed. There were many wonderfuldresses to be bought, dresses for walking in the streets and dressesfor driving in a carriage, and others again for riding on horsebackand for traveling in. There was a dress of crimson silk with a deeplace collar, and a heavy, wine-colored satin dress with a gold chainfalling down in front of it, and there was a pretty white dress of thefinest linen, having one red rose pinned at the waist. There wereblack silken stockings with quaint designs worked on them in red silk, and scarves of silver gauze, and others embroidered with flowers andlittle shapes of men and women. 

When her mother was planning all these things she was very happy, butafterwards she used to cry bitterly and rock her daughter to and froon her breast until she hurt her. 

II

Every morning about six o'clock Mary Makebelieve left her bed and litthe fire. It was an ugly fire to light, because the chimney had neverbeen swept, and there was no draught. Also they never had any sticksin the house, and scraps of paper twisted tightly into balls with thelast night's cinders placed on them and a handful of small coalsstrewn on the top were used instead. Sometimes the fire blazed upquickly, and that made her happy, but at other times it went out threeand four, and often half a dozen times; then the little bottle ofparaffin oil had to be squandered--a few rags well steeped in the oilwith a newspaper stretched over the grate seldom failed to coax enoughfire to boil the saucepan of water; generally this method smoked thewater, and then the tea tasted so horrid that one only drank it forthe sake of economy. 

Mrs. Makebelieve liked to lie in bed until the last possible moment. As there was no table in the room, Mary used to bring the two cups oftea, the tin of condensed milk, and the quarter of a loaf over to thebed, and there she and her mother took their breakfast. 

From the time she opened her eyes in the morning her mother neverceased to talk. It was then she went over all the things that hadhappened on the previous day and enumerated the places she would haveto go to on the present day, and the chances for and against themaking of a little money. At this meal she used to arrange also tohave the room re-papered and the chimney swept and the rat-holesstopped up--there were three of these, one was on the left-hand sideof the fire grate, the other two were under the bed, and MaryMakebelieve had lain awake many a night listening to the gnawing ofteeth on the skirting and the scamper of little feet here and there onthe floor. Her mother further arranged to have a Turkey carpet placedon the floor, although she admitted that oilcloth or linoleum waseasier to clean, but they were not so nice to the feet or the eye. Into all these improvements her daughter entered with the greatestdelight. There was to be a red mahogany chest of drawers against onewall and a rosewood piano against the wall opposite. A fender ofshining brass with brazen furniture, a bright, copper kettle forboiling water in, and an iron pot for cooking potatoes and meat; therewas to be a life-sized picture of Mary over the mantelpiece and apicture of her mother near the window in a golden frame, also apicture of a Newfoundland dog lying in a barrel and a little weeterrier crawling up to make friends with him, and a picture of abattle between black people and soldiers. 

Her mother knew it was time to get out of bed when she heard a heavystep coming from the next room and going downstairs. A laboring manlived there with his wife and six children. When the door banged shejumped up, dressed quickly, and flew from the room in a panic ofhaste. Usually then, as there was nothing to do, Mary went back to bedfor another couple of hours. After this she arose, made the bed andtidied the room, and went out to walk in the streets, or to sit in theSt. Stephen's Green Park. She knew every bird in the Park, those thathad chickens and those that had had chickens, and those that never hadany chickens at all--these latter were usually drakes, and had reasonon their side for an abstention which might otherwise have appearedremarkable, but they did not deserve the pity which Mary lavished ontheir childlessness, nor the extra pieces of bread with which shesought to recompense them. She loved to watch the ducklings swimmingafter their mothers: they were quite fearless, and would dash to thewater's edge where one was standing and pick up nothing with thegreatest eagnerness and swallow it with delight. The mother duck swamplacidly close to her brood and clucked in a low voice all kinds ofwarnings and advice and reproof to the little ones. Mary Makebelievethought it was very clever of the little ducklings to be able to swimso well. She loved them, and when nobody was looking she used to cluckat them like their mother, but she did not often do this because shedid not know duck language really well, and feared that her cluckmight mean the wrong things, and that she might be giving theseinnocents bad advice, and telling them to do something contrary towhat their mother had just directed. 

The bridge across the big lake was a fascinating place. On the sunnyside lots of ducks were always standing on their heads searching forsomething in the water, so that they looked like only half ducks. Onthe shady side hundreds of eels were swimming about--they were mostwonderful things; some of them were thin like ribbons, and others wereround and plump like thick ropes. They never seemed to fight at all, and although the ducklings were so tiny the big eels never touched anyof them, even when they dived right down amongst them. Some of theeels swam along very slowly, looking on this side and on that as ifthey were out of work or up from the country, and others whizzed bywith incredible swiftness. Mary Makebelieve thought that the latterkind had just heard their babies crying; she wondered, when a littlefish cried, could its mother see the tears where there was already somuch water about, and then she thought that maybe they cried hardlumps of something that was easily visible. 

After this she would go around the flower-beds and look at each; someof them were shaped like stars, and some were quite round, and othersagain were square. She liked the star-shaped flower-beds best, andnext she liked the round ones, and last of all the square. But sheloved all the flowers, and used to make up stories about them. 

After that, growing hungry, she would go home for her lunch. She wenthome down Grafton Street and O'Connell Street. She always went alongthe right-hand side of the street going home, and looked in every shopwindow that she passed, and then, when she had eaten her lunch, shecame out again and walked along the left-hand side of the road, looking at the shops on that side, and so she knew daily everythingthat was new in the city, and was able to tell her mother at nighttimethat the black dress with Spanish lace was taken out of Manning'swindow and a red gown with tucks at the shoulders and Irish lace atthe wrists put in its place; or that the diamond ring in Johnson'smarked One Hundred Pounds was gone from the case and that a slide ofbrooches of beaten silver and blue enamel was there instead. 

In the nighttime her mother and herself went round to each of thetheaters in turn and watched the people going in and looked at the bigposters. When they went home afterwards they had supper and used totry to make out the plots of the various plays from the pictures theyhad seen, so that generally they had lots to talk about before theywent to bed. Mary Makebelieve used to talk most in the nighttime, buther mother talked most in the morning. 

III

Her mother spoke sometimes of matrimony as a thing remote but verycertain; the remoteness of this adventure rather shocked MaryMakebelieve; she knew that a girl had to get married, that a strange, beautiful man would come from somewhere looking for a wife and wouldretire again with his bride to that Somewhere which is the country ofRomance. At times (and she could easily picture it) he rode in armoron a great bay horse, the plume of his helmet trailing among the highleaves of the forest. Or he came standing on the prow of a swift shipwith the sunlight blazing back from his golden armor. Or on a grassyplain, fleet as the wind, he came running, leaping, laughing. 

When the subject of matrimony was under discussion her mother plannedminutely the person of the groom, his vast accomplishments, and yetvaster wealth, the magnificence of his person, and the love in whichhe was held by rich and poor alike. She also discussed, down to thesmallest detail, the elaborate trousseau she would provide for herdaughter, the extravagant presents the bridegroom would make to hisbride and her maids, and those, yet more costly, which thebridegroom's family would send to the newly married pair. All thesewonders could only concentrate in the person of a lord. MaryMakebelieve's questions as to the status and appurtenances of a lordwere searching and minute, her mother's rejoinders were equallyelaborate and particular. 

At his birth a lord is cradled in silver, at his death he is laid ina golden casket, an oaken coffin, and a leaden outer coffin until, finally, a massy stone sarcophagus shrouds his remains forever. Hislife is a whirl of gayety and freedom. Around his castle there spreadmiles upon miles of sunny grass lands and ripened orchards and wavingforests, and through these he hunts with his laughing companions orwalks gently with his lady. He has servants by the thousand, eachanxious to die for him, and his wealth, prodigious beyond thecomputation of avarice, is stored in underground chambers, whose low, tortuous passages lead to labyrinths of vaults, massy and impregnable. 

Mary Makebelieve would have loved to wed a lord. If a lord had come toher when she paced softly through a forest, or stood alone on theseashore, or crouched among the long grass of a windy plain, she wouldhave placed her hands in his and followed him and loved him trulyforever. But she did not believe that these things happened nowadays, nor did her mother. Nowadays! her mother looked on these paltry timeswith an eye whose scorn was complicated by fury. Mean, ugly days, mean, ugly lives, and mean, ugly people, said her mother, that's allone can get nowadays, and then she spoke of the people whose housesshe washed out and whose staircases she scrubbed down, and herold-ivory face flamed from her black hair and her deep, dark eyeswhirled and became hard and motionless as points of jet, and her handsjumped alternately into knuckles and claws. 

But it became increasingly evident to Mary Makebelieve that marriagewas not a story but a fact, and, somehow, the romance of it did notdrift away, although the very house wherein she lived was infested bythese conjoints, and the streets wherein she walked were crowded withundistinguished couples. .. . Those gray-lived, dreary-natured peoplehad a spark of fire smoldering somewhere in their poor economy. Sixfeet deep is scarcely deep enough to bury romance, and until thatdepth of clay has clogged our bones the fire can still smolder and befanned, and, perhaps, blaze up and flare across a county or a countryto warm the cold hands of many a shriveled person. 

How did all these people come together? She did not yet understand thebasic necessity that drives the male to the female. Sex was not yet toher a physiological distinction, it was only a differentiation ofclothing, a matter of whiskers and no whiskers: but she had begun totake a new and peculiar interest in men. One of these hurrying orloitering strangers might be the husband whom fate had ordained forher. She would scarcely have been surprised if one of the men wholooked at her casually in the street had suddenly halted and asked herto marry him. It came on her with something like assurance that thatwas the only business these men were there for, she could not discoverany other reason or excuse for their existence, and if some man hadbeen thus adventurous Mary Makebelieve would have been sadly perplexedto find an answer: she might, indeed, have replied, "Yes, thank you, sir, " for when a man asks one to do a thing for him one does itgladly. There was an attraction about young men which she could notunderstand, something peculiarly dear and magnetic; she would haveliked to shake hands with one to see how different he felt from agirl. They would, probably, shake hands quite hard and then hit one. She fancied she would not mind being hit by a man, and then, watchingthe vigor of their movements, she thought they could hit very hard, but still there was a terrible attraction about the idea of being hitby a man. She asked her mother (with apparent irrelevance) had a manever struck her; her mother was silent for a few moments, and thenburst into so violent a passion of weeping that Mary Makebelieve wasfrightened. She rushed into her mother's arms and was rocked fiercelyagainst a heart almost bursting with bitter pride and recollection. But her mother did not then, nor did she ever afterwards, answer MaryMakebelieve's question. 

IV

Every afternoon a troop of policemen marched in solemn and majesticsingle file from the College Green Police Station. At regularintervals, one by one, a policeman stepped sideways from the file, adjusted his belt, touched his moustache, looked up the street anddown the street for stray criminals, and condescended to the dutiesof his beat. 

At the crossing where Nassau and Suffolk streets intersect GraftonStreet one of these superb creatures was wont to relinquish hiscompanions, and there in the center of the road, a monument ofsolidity and law, he remained until the evening hour which releasedhim again to the companionship of his peers. 

Perhaps this point is the most interesting place in Dublin. Upon onevista Grafton Street with its glittering shops stretches, or ratherwinds, to the St. Stephen's Green Park, terminating at the gate knownas the Fusiliers' Arch, but which local patriotism has rechristenedthe Traitors' Gate. On the left Nassau Street, broad and clean, and atrifle vulgar and bourgeois in its openness, runs away to MerrionSquare, and on with a broad ease to Blackrock and Kingstown and thesea. On the right hand Suffolk Street, reserved and shy, twists up toSt. Andrew's Church, touches gingerly the South City Markets, droopsto George's Street, and is lost in mean and dingy intersections. Atthe back of the crossing Grafton Street continues again for a littledistance down to Trinity College (at the gates whereof veryintelligent young men flaunt very tattered gowns and smoke massivepipes with great skill for their years), skirting the Bank of Ireland, and on to the River Liffey and the street which local patriotismdefiantly speaks of as O'Connell Street, and alien patriotism, withequal defiance and pertinacity, knows as Sackville Street. 

To the point where these places meet, and where the policeman stands, all the traffic of Dublin converges in a constant stream. The tramshurrying to Terenure, or Donnybrook, or Dalkey flash around thiscorner; the doctors who, in these degenerate days, concentrate inMerrion Square, fly up here in carriages and motor cars, the vans ofthe great firms in Grafton and O'Connell streets, or those outlying, never cease their exuberant progress. The ladies and gentlemen ofleisure stroll here daily at four o'clock, and from all sides thevehicles and pedestrians, the bicycles and motor bicycles, the tramsand the outside cars rush to the solitary policeman, who directs themall with his severe but tolerant eye. He knows all the tram-driverswho go by, and his nicely graduated wink rewards the glances of therubicund, jolly drivers of the hackneys and the decayed Jehus withpurple faces and dismal hopefulness who drive sepulchral cabs for somereason which has no acquaintance with profit; nor are the ladies andgentlemen who saunter past foreign to his encyclopedic eye. Constantlyhis great head swings a slow recognition, constantly his serene fingermotions onwards a well-known undesirable, and his big, white teethflash for an instant at young, laughing girls and the more matronlyacquaintances who solicit the distinction of his glance. 

To this place, and about this hour, Mary Makebelieve, returning fromher solitary lunch, was wont to come. The figure of the massivepoliceman fascinated her. Surely everything desirable in manhood wasconcentrated in his tremendous body. What an immense, shattering blowthat mighty fist could give! She could imagine it swinging vast as thebuffet of a hero, high-thrown and then down irresistibly--a crashing, monumental hand. She delighted in his great, solid head as it swungslowly from side to side, and his calm, proud eye--a governing, compelling and determined eye. She had never met his glance yet: shewithered away before it as a mouse withers and shrinks and falls toits den before a cat's huge glare. She used to look at him from thecurbstone in front of the chemist's shop, or on the opposite side ofthe road, while pretending to wait for a tram; and at the pillar-boxbeside the optician's she found time for one furtive twinkle of aglance that shivered to his face and trembled away into the traffic. She did not think he noticed her, but there was nothing he did notnotice. His business was noticing: he caught her in his mentalpoliceman's note-book the very first day she came; he saw her eachday beside, and at last looked for her coming and enjoyed herstrategy. One day her shy, creeping glance was caught by his; it heldher mesmerized for a few seconds, it looked down into her--for amoment the whole world seemed to have become one immense eye--shecould scarcely get away from it. 

When she remembered again she was standing by the pond in St. Stephen's Green Park, with a queer frightened exaltation lighteningthrough her blood. She did not go home that night by Grafton Street, she did not dare venture within reach of that powerful organism, butwent a long way round, and still the way seemed very short. 

That night her mother, although very tired, was the more talkative ofthe two. She offered in exchange for her daughter's thoughts penniesthat only existed in her imagination. Mary Makebelieve professed thatit was sleep and not thought obsessed her, and exhibited voucher yawnswhich were as fictitious as her reply. When they went to bed thatnight it was a long time before she slept. She lay looking into thedeep gloom of the chamber, and scarcely heard the fierce dreams of hermother, who was demanding from a sleep world the things she lacked inthe wide-awake one. 

V

This is the appearance of Mary Makebelieve at that time:--She had fairhair, and it was very soft and very thick; when she unwound this itfell, or rather flowed, down to her waist, and when she walked aboutthe room with her hair unloosened it curved beautifully about herhead, snuggled into the hollow of her neck, ruffled out broadly againupon her shoulders, and swung into and out of her figure with everymotion; surging and shrinking and dancing; the ends of her hair weresoft and loose as foam, and it had the color and shining of pure, light gold. Commonly in the house she wore her hair loose, because hermother liked the appearance of youth imparted by hanging hair, andwould often desire her daughter to leave off her outer skirt and walkonly in her petticoats to heighten the illusion of girlishness. Herhead was shaped very tenderly and softly; it was so small that whenher hair was twisted up on it it seemed much too delicate to bear sogreat a burden. Her eyes were gray, limpidly tender and shy, droopingunder weighty lids, so that they seldom seemed more than half openedand commonly sought the ground rather than the bolder excursions ofstraightforwardness; they seldom looked for longer than a glance, climbing and poising and eddying about the person at whom she gazed, and then dived away again; and always when she looked at any one shesmiled a deprecation of her boldness. She had a small white face, verylike her mother's in some ways and at some angles, but the tight beakwhich was her mother's nose was absent in Mary; her nose withdrewtimidly in the center and only snatched a hurried courage to becomevisible at the tip. It was a nose that seemed to have been snubbedalmost out of existence. Her mother loved it because it was so little, and had tried so hard not to be a nose at all. They often stoodtogether before the little glass that had a great crack runningdrunkenly from the right-hand top corner down to the left-hand bottomcorner, and two small arm crosses, one a little above the other, inthe center. When one's face looked into this glass it often appearedthere as four faces with horrible aberrations; an ear might be curvingaround a lip or an eye leering strangely in the middle of a chin. Butthere were ways of looking into the glass which practice had discovered, and usage had long ago dulled the terrors of its vagaries. Looking intothis glass Mrs. Makebelieve would comment minutely upon the two facestherein, and, pointing to her own triumphantly genuine nose and the factthat her husband's nose had been of quite discernible proportions, shewould seek in labyrinths of pedigree for a reason to justify herdaughter's lack; she passed all her sisters in this review, with anarmy of aunts and great-aunts, rifling the tombs of grandparents andtheir remoter blood, and making long-dead noses to live again. MaryMakebelieve used to lift her timidly curious eye and smile indeprecation of her nasal shortcomings, and then her mother would kissthe dejected button and vow it was the dearest, loveliest bit of a nosethat had ever been seen. 

"Big noses suit some people, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, "but they do notsuit others, and one would not suit you, dearie. They go well withblack-haired people and very tall people, military gentlemen, judgesand apothecaries; but small, fair folk cannot support great noses. Ilike my own nose, " she continued. "At school, when I was a littlegirl, the other girls used to laugh at my nose, but I always liked it, and after a time other people came to like it also. "

Mary Makebelieve had small, slim hands and feet: the palms of herhands were softer than anything in the world; there were five little, pink cushions on her palm: beginning at the little finger there was avery tiny cushion, the next one was bigger, and the next bigger again, until the largest ended a perfect harmony at the base of her thumb. Her mother used to kiss these little cushions at times, holding backthe finger belonging to each, and naming it as she touched it. Theseare the names of Mary Makebelieve's fingers, beginning with theThumb:--Tom Tumkins, Willie Winkles, Long Daniel, Bessie Bobtail andLittle Dick-Dick. 

Her slight, girlish figure was only beginning to creep to the deepercontours of womanhood, a half curve here and there, a sudden softnessin the youthful lines, certain angles trembling on the slightest ofrolls, a hint, a suggestion, the shadowy prophecy of circles and halfhoops that could not yet roll: the trip of her movements was troubledsometimes to a sedater motion. 

These things her mother's curiosity was continually recording, sometimes with happy pride, but oftener in a kind of anger to findthat her little girl was becoming a big girl. If it had been possibleshe would have detained her daughter forever in the physique of achild; she feared the time when Mary would become too evidently awoman, when all kinds of equalities would come to hinder herspontaneous and active affection. A woman might object to be nursed, while a girl would not; Mrs. Makebelieve feared that objection, and, indeed, Mary, under the stimulus of an awakening body and a new, strange warmth, was not altogether satisfied by being nursed or bybeing the passive participant in these caresses. She sometimes thoughtthat she would like to take her mother on her own breast and rock herto and fro, crooning soft made-up words and kissing the top of a heador the half-hidden curve of a cheek, but she did not dare to do sofor fear her mother would strike her. Her mother was very jealous onthat point, she loved her daughter to kiss her and stroke her handsand her face, but she never liked her to play at being the mother, norhad she ever encouraged her daughter in the occupations of a doll. Shewas the mother and Mary was the baby, and she could not bear to haveher motherhood hindered even in play. 

VI

Although Mary Makebelieve was sixteen years of age she had not yetgone to work; her mother did not like the idea of her little girlstooping to the drudgery of the only employment she could have aidedher to obtain--that was, to assist herself in the humble and arduoustoil of charing. She had arranged that Mary was to go into a shop, adrapery store, or some such other, but that was to be in a sometimewhich seemed infinitely remote. "And then, too, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, "all kinds of things may happen in a year or so if wewait. Your uncle Patrick, who went to America twenty years ago, maycome home, and when he does you will not have to work, dearie, norwill I. Or again, some one going along the street may take a fancy toyou and marry you; things often happen like that. " There were athousand schemes and accidents which, in her opinion, might occur tothe establishment of her daughter's ease and the enlargement of herown dignity. And so Mary Makebelieve, when her mother was at work(which was sometimes every day in the week), had all the day to loiterin and spend as best she liked. Sometimes she did not go out at all. She stayed in the top back room sewing or knitting, mending holes inthe sheets or the blankets, or reading books from the Free Library inCapel Street: but generally she preferred, after the few hours whichserved to put the room in order, to go out and walk along the streets, taking new turnings as often as she fancied, and striking down strangeroads to see the shops and the people. 

There were so many people whom she knew by sight; almost daily she sawthese somewhere, and she often followed them for a short distance, with a feeling of friendship; for the loneliness of the long dayoften drew down upon her like a weight, so that even the distantcompanionship of these remembered faces that did not know her wascomforting. She wished she could find out who some of themwere. --There was a tall man with a sweeping brown beard, whose heavyovercoat looked as though it had been put on with a shovel; he worespectacles, and his eyes were blue, and always seemed as if they weregoing to laugh; he, also, looked into the shops as he went along, andhe seemed to know everybody. Every few paces people would halt andshake his hand, but these people never spoke because the big man withthe brown beard would instantly burst into a fury of speech which hadno intervals, and when there was no one with him at all he would talkto himself. On these occasions he did not see any one, and people hadto jump out of his way while he strode onwards swinging his big headfrom one side to the other, and with his eyes fixed on some place agreat distance away. Once or twice, in passing, she heard him singingto himself the most lugubrious song in the world. There was another--along, thin, black man--who looked young and was always smiling secretlyto himself; his lips were never still for a moment, and, passing MaryMakebelieve a few times, she heard him buzzing like a great bee. He didnot stop to shake hands with any one, and although many people salutedhim he took no heed, but strode on smiling his secret smile and buzzingserenely. There was a third man whom she often noticed: his clothingseemed as if it had been put on him a long time ago and had never beentaken off again. He had a long, pale face, with a dark moustachedrooping over a most beautiful mouth. His eyes were very big and lazy, and did not look quite human; they had a trick of looking sidewards--amost intimate, personal look. Sometimes he saw nothing in the world butthe pavement, and at other times he saw everything. He looked at MaryMakebelieve once and she got a fright; she had a queer idea that she hadknown him well hundreds of years before and that he remembered her also. She was afraid of that man, but she liked him because he looked sogentle and so--there was something else he looked which as yet she couldnot put a name to, but which her ancestry remembered dimly. There was ashort, fair, pale-faced man, who looked like the tiredest man in theworld. He was often preoccupied, but not in the singular way the otherswere. He seemed to be always chewing the cud of remembrance, and lookedat people as if they reminded him of other people who were dead a longtime and whom he thought of but did not regret. He was a detached maneven in a crowd and carried with him a cold atmosphere; even his smilewas bleak and aloof. Mary Makebelieve noticed that many people nudgedeach other as he went by, and then they would turn and look after himand go away whispering. 

These and many others she saw almost daily, and used to look for witha feeling of friendship. At other times she walked up the long line ofquays sentineling the Liffey, watching the swift boats of Guinnesspuffing down the river and the thousands of sea-gulls hovering aboveor swimming on the dark waters, until she came to the Phoenix Park, where there was always a cricket or football match being played, orsome young men or girls playing hurley, or children playingtip-and-tig, running after one another, and dancing and screaming inthe sunshine. Her mother liked very much to go with her to thePhoenix Park on days when there was no work to be done. Leaving thegreat, white main road, up which the bicycles and motor cars arecontinually whizzing, a few minutes' walk brings one to quiet alleyssheltered by trees and groves of hawthorn. In these passages one canwalk for a long time without meeting a person, or lie on the grass inthe shadow of a tree and watch the sunlight beating down on the greenfields and shimmering between the trees. There is a deep silence to befound here, very strange and beautiful to one fresh from the city, andit is strange also to look about in the broad sunshine and see noperson near at all, and no movement saving the roll and folding of thegrass, the slow swinging of the branches of the trees or the noiselessflight of a bee, a butterfly, or a bird. 

These things Mary Makebelieve liked, but her mother would pine for thedances of the little children, the gallant hurrying of the motor cars, and the movement to and fro of the people with gay dresses and coloredparasols and all the circumstance of holiday. 

VII

One morning Mary Makebelieve jumped out of bed and lit the fire. For awonder it lit easily: the match was scarcely applied when the flameswere leaping up the black chimney, and this made her feel at ease withthe world. Her mother stayed in bed chatting with something more ofgayety than usual. It was nearly six o'clock, and the early summer sunwas flooding against the grimy window. The previous evening's post hadbrought a post-card for Mrs. Makebelieve, requesting her to call on aMrs. O'Connor, who had a house off Harcourt Street. This, of course, meant a day's work--it also meant a new client. 

Mrs. Makebelieve's clients were always new. She could not remain forany length of time in people's employment without being troubled bythe fact that these folk had houses of their own and were actuallyemploying her in a menial capacity. She sometimes looked at theirblack silk aprons in a way which they never failed to observe withanger, and on their attempting (as they always termed it) to put herin her proper place, she would discuss their appearance and moralswith such power that they at once dismissed her from their employmentand incited their husbands to assault her. 

Mrs. Makebelieve's mind was exercised in finding out who hadrecommended her to this new lady, and in what terms of encomium suchrecommendation had been framed. She also debated as to whether itwould be wise to ask for one shilling and ninepence per day instead ofthe customary one shilling and sixpence. If the house was a big oneshe might be required by this new customer oftener than once a week, and, perhaps, there were others in the house besides the lady whowould find small jobs for her to do--needlework or messages, or somesuch which would bring in a little extra money; for she professed herwillingness and ability to undertake with success any form of work inwhich a woman could be eminent. In a house where she had worked shehad once been asked by a gentleman who lodged there to order in twodozen bottles of stout, and, on returning with the stout, thegentleman had thanked her and given her a shilling. Incidents parallelto this had kept her faith in humanity green. There must be plenty ofthese open-handed gentlemen in houses such as she worked in, and, perhaps, in Mrs. O'Connor's house there might be more than one suchperson. There were stingy people enough, heaven knew, people who wouldget one to run messages and almost expect to be paid themselves forallowing one to work for them. Mrs. Makebelieve anathematized suchskinflints with a vocabulary which was quite equal to the detailingof their misdeeds; but she refused to dwell on them: they were notreally important in a world where the sun was shining. In thenighttime she would again believe in their horrible existences, butuntil then the world must be peopled with kind-hearted folk. Sheinstanced many whom she knew, people who had advanced services andeffects without exacting or indeed expecting any return. 

When the tea was balanced insecurely on the bed, the two teacups onone side of her legs, the three-quarters of a loaf and the tin ofcondensed milk on the other, Mary sat down with great care, and allthrough the breakfast her mother culled from her capacious memory alist of kindnesses of which she had been the recipient or the witness. Mary supplemented the recital by incidents from her own observation. She had often seen a man in the street give a penny to an old woman. She had often seen old women give things to other old women. She knewmany people who never looked for the halfpenny change from a newsboy. Mrs. Makebelieve applauded the justice of such transactions; theywere, she admitted, the things she would do herself if she were in aposition to be careless; but a person to whom the discovery of herdaily bread is a daily problem, and who can scarcely keep pace withthe ever-changing terms of the problem, is not in a position to becareless. --"Grind, grind, grind, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, "that is lifefor me, and if I ceased to grind for an instant . .. " she flickered herthin hand into a nowhere of terror. Her attitude was that when one hadenough one should give the residue to some one who had not enough. Itwas her woe, it stabbed her to the heart, to see desolate peopledragging through the streets, standing to glare through the windows ofbakeries and confectioners' shops, and little children in some ofthese helpless arms! Thinking of these, she said that every morsel sheate would choke her were it not for her own hunger. But maybe, saidshe, catching a providential glance of the golden-tinted window, maybethese poor people were not as poor as they seemed: surely they hadways of collecting a living which other people did not know anythingabout. It might be that they got lots of money from kind-heartedpeople, and food at hospitable doors, and here and there clothing andoddments which, if they did not wear, they knew how to dispose ofadvantageously. What extremes of ways and means such people must beacquainted with! no ditch was too low to rummage in, no rat-hole toohidden to be ravaged; a gate represented something to be climbed over:an open door was an invitation, a locked one a challenge. They coulddodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed wire ofmorality with equal impunity, and the utmost rigor of punishmenthad little terror for those whose hardships could scarcely beartificially worsened. The stagger of despair, the stricken, helplessaspect of such people, their gaunt faces and blurred eyes mightconceivably be their stock-in-trade, the keys wherewith they unlockedhearts and purses and area-doors. It must be so when the sun wasshining and birds were singing across fields not immeasurably distant, and children in walled gardens romped among fruits and flowers. Shewould believe this, for it was the early morning when one mustbelieve, but when the nighttime came again she would laugh to scornsuch easy beliefs, she would see the lean ribs of humanity when sheundressed herself. 

VIII

After her mother had gone Mary Makebelieve occupied herself settlingthe room and performing the various offices which the keeping in orderof even one small room involves. There were pieces of the wall-paperflapping loosely; these had to be gummed down with strips ofstamp-paper. The bed had to be made, the floor scrubbed, and amiscellany of objects patted and tapped into order. Her few dressesalso had to be gone over for loose buttons, and the darning ofthreadbare places was a duty exercising her constant attention. Herclothing was always made by her mother, whose needle had once beennoted for expertness, and, therefore, fitted more accurately than iscustomary in young girls' dresses. The arranging and rearranging ofher beads was a frequent and enjoyable labor. She had four differentnecklaces, representing four different pennyworths of beads purchasedat a shop whose merchandise was sold for one penny per item. Onepennyworth of these beads was colored green, another red, a third wascolored like pearls, and the fourth was a miscellaneous packet of manycolors. A judicious selection of these beads could always provide anew and magnificent necklace at the expense of little more than ahalf-hour's easy work. 

Because the sun was shining she brought out her white dress, and for atime was busy on it. There had been five tucks in the dress, but oneafter one they had to be let out. This was the last tuck thatremained, and it also had to go, but even with such extra lengtheningthe dress would still swing free of her ankles. Her mother hadpromised to add a false hem to it when she got time, and Marydetermined to remind her of this promise as soon as she came in fromwork. She polished her shoes, put on the white dress, and then did upher hair in front of the cracked looking-glass. She always put up herhair very plainly. She first combed it down straight, then parted itin the center, and rolled it into a great ball at the back of herneck. She often wished to curl her hair, and, indeed, it would havecurled with the lightest persuasion: but her mother being approachedon the subject, said that curls were common and were seldom worn byrespectable people, excepting very small children or actresses, bothof whose slender mentalities were registered by these tinydaintinesses. Also, curls took up too much time in arranging, and theslightest moisture in the air was liable to draw them down into lankand unsightly plasters, and, therefore, saving for a dance or apicnic, curls should not be used. 

Mary Makebelieve, having arranged her hair, hesitated for some time inthe choice of a necklace. There was the pearl-colored necklace--it wasvery pretty, but every one could tell at once that they were notgenuine pearls. Real pearls of the bigness of these would be veryvaluable. Also there was something childish about pearls whichlatterly she wished to avoid. She had quite grown up now. The lettingdown of the last tuck in her dress marked an epoch as distinct as didthe first rolling up of her hair. She wished her dress would go rightdown to her heels so that she might have a valid reason for holding upher skirts with one hand. She felt a trifle of impatience because hermother had delayed making the false hem; she could have stitched it onherself if her mother had cut it out, but for this day the dress wouldhave to do. She wished she owned a string of red coral; not that roundbeady sort, but the jagged crisscross coral--a string of these longenough to go twice round her neck, and yet hang down in front to herwaist. If she owned a string as long as that she might be able to cutenough off to make a slender wristlet. She would have loved to seesuch a wristlet sagging down to her hand. 

Red, it seemed, would have to be the color for this day, so she tookthe red beads out of a box and put them on. They looked very niceagainst her white dress, but still--she did not quite like them: theyseemed too solid, so she put them back into the box again, and insteadtied round her neck a narrow ribbon of black velvet, which satisfiedher better. Next she put on her hat; it was of straw, and had beenwashed many times. There was a broad ribbon of black velvet around it. She wished earnestly that she had a sash of black velvet about threeinches deep to go round her waist. There was such a piece about thehem of her mother's Sunday skirt, but, of course, that could not betouched; maybe, her mother would give it to her if she asked. Theskirt would look quite as well without it, and when her mother knewhow nice it looked round her waist she would certainly give it to her. 

She gave a last look at herself in the glass and went out, turning upto the quays in the direction of the Phoenix Park. The sun wasshining gloriously, and the streets seemed wonderfully clean in thesunlight. The horses under the heavy drays pulled their loads as ifthey were not heavy. The big, red-faced drivers leaned back at ease, with their hard hats pushed back from their foreheads and their eyespuckered at the sunshine. The tram-cars whizzed by like great jewels. The outside cars went spanking down the broad road, and everyjolly-faced jarvey winked at her as he jolted by. The people going upand down the street seemed contented and happy. It was one o'clock, and from all kinds of offices and shops young men and women weredarting forth for their lunch; none of the young men were so hurriedbut they had a moment to glance admiringly at Mary Makebelieve beforediving into a cheap restaurant or cheaper public-house for theirfood. The gulls in the river were flying in long, lazy curves, dippingdown to the water, skimming it an instant, and then wheeling up againwith easy, slanting wings. Every few minutes a boat laden with barrelspuffed swiftly from beneath a bridge. All these boats had prettynames--there was the _Shannon_, the _Suir_, the _Nore_, the _Lagan_, and many others. The men on board sat contentedly on the barrels andsmoked and made slow remarks to one another; and overhead the sky wasblue and wonderful, immeasurably distant, filled from horizon tohorizon with sparkle and warmth. Mary Makebelieve went slowly ontowards the Park. She felt very happy. Now and then a darker spotflitted through her mind, not at all obscuring, but toning thebrightness of her thoughts to a realizable serenity. She wished herskirts were long enough to be held up languidly like the lady walkingin front: the hand holding up the skirt had a golden curb-chain onthe wrist which drooped down to the neatly gloved hand, and betweeneach link of the chain was set a blue turquoise, and upon this jewelthe sun danced splendidly. Mary Makebelieve wished she had a slenderred coral wristlet; it also would have hung down to her palm and beenlovely in the sunlight, and it would, she thought, have been far nicerthan the bangle. 

IX

She walked along for some time in the Park. Through the railingsflanking the great road many beds of flowers could be seen. These werelaid out in a great variety of forms--of stars and squares and crossesand circles, and the flowers were arranged in exquisite patterns. There was a great star which flamed with red flowers at the deeppoints, and in its heart a heavier mass of yellow blossom glaredsuddenly. There were circles wherein each ring was a differentlycolored flower, and others where three rings alternated--three ringswhite, three purple, and three orange, and so on in slenderer circlesto the tiniest diminishing. Mary Makebelieve wished she knew the namesof all the flowers, but the only ones she recognized by sight were thegeraniums, some species of roses, violets, and forget-me-nots andpansies. The more exotic sorts she did not know, and, while sheadmired them greatly, she had not the same degree of affection forthem as for the commoner, friendly varieties. 

Leaving the big road she wandered into wider fields. In a few momentsthe path was hidden, the outside cars, motor cars and bicycles hadvanished as completely as though there were no such things in theworld. Great numbers of children were playing about in distinct bands;each troop was accompanied by one and sometimes two older people, girls or women who lay stretched out on the warm grass or leanedagainst the tree-trunks reading novelettes, and around them thechildren whirled and screamed and laughed. It was a world of wavingpinafores and thin black-stockinged legs and shrill, sweet voices. Inthe great spaces the children's voices had a strangely remote quality;the sweet, high tones were not such as one heard in the streets or inhouses. In a house or a street these voices thudded upon the air andbeat sonorously back again from the walls, the houses, or thepavements; but out here the slender sounds sang to a higher tenuityand disappeared out and up and away into the tree-tops and the cloudsand the wide, windy reaches. The little figures partook also of thisdiminuendo effect; against the great grassy curves they seemed smallerthan they really were; the trees stirred hugely above them, the grasswaved vast beneath them, and the sky ringed them in from immensity. Their forms scarcely disturbed the big outline of nature, theirlaughter only whispered against the silence, as ineffectual to disturbthat gigantic serenity as a gnat's wing fluttered against a precipice. 

Mary Makebelieve wandered on; a few cows lifted solemnly curious facesas she passed and swung their heavy heads behind her. Once or twicehalf a dozen deer came trotting from beyond the trees, and wereshocked to a halt on seeing her--a moment's gaze, and away like thewind, bounding in a delicious freedom. Now a butterfly came twistingon some eccentric journey--ten wing-beats to the left, twenty to theright, and then back to the left, or, with a sudden twist, returningon the path which it had already traversed, jerking carelessly throughthe sunlight. Across the sky very far up a troop of birds saileddefinitely--they knew where they were going; momently one would detachitself from the others in a burst of joyous energy and sweep a greatcircle and back again to its comrades, and then away, away, away tothe skyline. --Ye swift ones! O, freedom and sweetness! A song fallingfrom the heavens! A lilt through deep sunshine! Happy wanderers! Howfast ye fly and how bravely--up and up, till the earth has fallen awayand the immeasurable heavens and the deep loneliness of the sunlightand the silence of great spaces receive you!

Mary Makebelieve came to a tree around which a circular wooden seathad been placed. Here for a time she sat looking out on the widefields. Far away in front the ground rolled down into valleys and upinto little hills, and from the valleys the green heads of treesemerged, and on the farther hills, in slender, distinct silhouette, and in great masses, entire trees could be seen. Nearer were singletrees, each with its separate shadow and a stream of sunlight floodingbetween; and everywhere the greenery of leaves and of grass and thegold of myriad buttercups and multitudes of white daisies. 

She had been sitting for some time when a shadow came from behind her. She watched its lengthening and its queer bobbing motion. When it grewto its greatest length it ceased to move. She felt that some one hadstopped. From the shape of the shadow she knew it was a man, but beingso close she did not like to look. Then a voice spoke. It was a voiceas deep as the rolling of a sea. 

"Hello, " said the voice; "what are you doing here all alone, younglady?"

Mary Makebelieve's heart suddenly spurted to full speed. It seemed towant more space than her bosom could afford. She looked up. Beside herstood a prodigious man: one lifted hand curled his moustache, theother carelessly twirled a long cane. He was dressed in ordinaryclothing, but Mary Makebelieve knew him at once for that greatpoliceman who guided the traffic at the Grafton Street crossing. 

X

The policeman told her wonderful things. He informed her why thePhoenix Park was called the Phoenix Park. He did not believe therewas a phoenix in the Zoological Gardens, although they probably hadevery kind of bird in the world there. It had never struck him, now hecame to think of it, to look definitely for that bird, but he would doso the next time he went into the Gardens. Perhaps the young ladywould allow him (it would be a much-appreciated privilege) to escorther through the Gardens some fine day, the following day forinstance. .. . He rather inclined to the belief that the phoenix wasextinct--that is, died out; and then, again, when he called to mindthe singular habits with which this bird was credited, he conceivedthat it had never had a real but only a mythical existence--that is, it was a makebelieve bird, a kind of fairy tale. 

He further informed Mary Makebelieve that this Park was the thirdlargest in the world, but the most beautiful. His evidence for thisstatement was not only the local newspapers, whose opinion might bebiased by patriotism--that is, led away from the exact truth--but inthe more stable testimony of reputable English journals, such as_Answers_ and _Tit-Bits_ and _Pearson's Weekly_, he found anauthoritative and gratifying confirmation--that is, they agreed. Hecited for Mary Makebelieve's incredulity the exact immensity of thePark in miles, in yards, and in acres, and the number of head ofcattle which could be accommodated therein if it were to be utilizedfor grazing--that is, turned into grass lands; or, if transformed intotillage, the number of small farmers who would be the proprietors ofeconomic holdings--that is, a recondite--that is, an abstruse and adifficult scientific and sociological term. 

Mary Makebelieve scarcely dared lift her glance to his face. Anuncontrollable shyness had taken possession of her. Her eyes could notlift without an effort: they fluttered vainly upwards, but beforereaching any height they flinched aside and drooped again to her lap. The astounding thought that she was sitting beside a man warmed andaffrighted her blood so that it rushed burningly to her cheeks andwent shuddering back again coldly. Her downcast eyes were almostmesmerized by the huge tweed-clad knees which towered like monolithsbeside her. They rose much higher than her knees did, and extended farout more than a foot and a half beyond her own modest stretch. Herknees slanted gently downwards as she sat, but his jagged straightlyforward, like the immovable knees of a god which she had seen once inthe Museum. On one of these great knees an equally great hand rested. Automatically she placed her own hand on her lap and, awe-stricken, tried to measure the difference. Her hand was very tiny and as whiteas snow: it seemed so light that the breathing of a wind might havefluttered it. The wrist was slender and delicate, and through itsmilky covering faint blue veins glimmered. A sudden and passionatewish came to her as she watched her wrist. She wished she had a redcoral bracelet on it, or a chain of silver beaten into flat discs, oreven two twists of little green beads. The hand that rested on theneighboring knee was bigger by three times than her own, the skin onit was tanned to the color of ripe mahogany-wood, and the heat of theday had caused great purple veins to grow in knots and ridges acrossthe back and running in big twists down to the wrists. The specificgravity of that hand seemed tremendous; she could imagine it holdingdown the strong neck of a bull. It moved continually while he spoketo her, closing in a tense strong grip that changed the mahogany colorto a dull whiteness and opening again to a ponderous, inert width. 

She was ashamed that she could find nothing to say. Her vocabulary hadsuddenly and miserably diminished to a "yes" and "no, " only tolerablyvaried by a timid "indeed" and "I did not know that. " Against the easyclamor of his speech she could find nothing to oppose, and ordinarilyher tongue tripped and eddied and veered as easily and nonchalantly asa feather in a wind. But he did not mind silence. He interpreted itrightly as the natural homage of a girl to a policeman. He liked thishomage because it helped him to feel as big as he looked, and he hadevery belief in his ability to conduct a polite and interestingconversation with any lady for an indefinite time. 

After a while Mary Makebelieve arose and was about bidding him a timidgood-by. She wished to go away to her own little room where she couldlook at herself and ask herself questions. She wanted to visualizeherself sitting under a tree beside a man. She knew that she couldreconstruct him to the smallest detail, but feared that she might notbe able to reconstruct herself. When she arose he also stood up andfell so naturally into step beside her that there was nothing to dobut to walk straight on. He still withstood the burden of conversationeasily and pleasantly and very learnedly. He discussed matters of highpolitical and social moment, explaining generously the more unusualand learned words that bristled from his vocabulary. Soon they came toa more populous part of the Park. The children ceased from their playto gaze round-eyed at the little girl and the big man, theirattendants looked and giggled and envied. Under these eyes MaryMakebelieve's walk became afflicted with a sideward bias which joltedher against her companion. She was furious with herself and ashamed. She set her teeth to walk easily and straightly, but constantly thejog of his elbow on her shoulder or the swing of his hand against herblouse sent her ambling wretchedly arms-length from him. When this hadoccurred half a dozen times she could have plumped down on the grassand wept loudly and without restraint. At the Park gate she stoppedsuddenly and with the courage of despair bade him good-by. He beggedcourteously to be allowed to see her a little way to her home, but shewould not permit it, and so he lifted his hat to her. (Through herdistress she could still note in a subterranean and half-consciousfashion the fact that this was the first time a man had ever uncoveredbefore her. ) As she went away down the road she felt that his eyeswere following her and her tripping walk hurried almost to a run. Shewished frantically that her dress was longer than it was--that falsehem! If she could have gathered a skirt in her hand the mere holdingon to something would have given her self-possession, but she fearedhe was looking critically at her short skirt and immodest ankles. 

He stood for a time gazing after her with a smile on his great face. He knew that she knew he was watching, and as he stood he drew hishand from his pocket and tapped and smoothed his moustache. He had ared moustache; it grew very thickly, but was cropped short and square, and its fiber was so strong that it stood out above his lip like wire. One expected it to crackle when he touched it, but it never did. 

XI

When Mrs. Makebelieve came home that night she seemed very tired, andcomplained that her work at Mrs. O'Connor's house was arduous beyondany which she has yet engaged in. She enumerated the many rooms thatwere in the house: those that were covered with carpets, the marginswhereof had to be beeswaxed: those others, only partially covered withrugs, which had to be entirely waxed: the upper rooms were uncarpetedand unrugged, and had, therefore, to be scrubbed: the basement, consisting of two red-flagged kitchens and a scullery, had also to bescoured out. The lady was very particular about the scouring ofwainscotings and doors. The upper part of the staircase was bare andhad to be scrubbed down, and the part down to the hall had a thinstrip of carpet on it secured by brazen rods; the margins on eitherside of this carpet had to be beeswaxed and the brass rods polished. There was a great deal of unnecessary and vexatious brass of one kindor another scattered about the house, and as there were four childrenin the family, besides Mrs. O'Connor and her two sisters, the amountof washing which had constantly to be done was enormous and terrifying. 

During their tea Mrs. Makebelieve called to mind the differentornaments which stood on the parlor mantelpiece and on the top of thepiano. There was a china shepherdess with a basket of flowers at oneend of the mantelpiece and an exact duplicate on the other. In thecenter a big clock of speckled marble was surmounted by a little domededifice with Corinthian pillars in front, and this again was topped bythe figure of an archer with a bent bow--there was nothing on top ofthis figure because there was not any room. Between each of thesearticles there stood little framed photographs of members of Mrs. O'Connor's family, and behind all there was a carved looking-glasswith beveled edges having many shelves. Each shelf had a cup or asaucer or a china bowl on it. On the left-hand side of the fireplacethere was a plaque whereon a young lady dressed in a sky-blue robecrossed by means of well-defined stepping-stones a thin but furiousstream; the middle distance was embellished by a cow, and the horizonsustained two white lambs, a brown dog, a fountain and a sun-dial. Onthe right-hand side a young gentleman clad in a crimson coat andyellow knee-breeches carried a three-cornered hat under his arm, andhe also crossed a stream which seemed the exact counterpart of theother one and whose perspective was similarly complicated. There werethree pictures on each wall--nine in all; three of these werepictures of ships, three were pictures of battles: two portrayedsaintly but emaciated personages sitting in peculiarly dishearteningwildernesses (each wilderness contained one cactus plant and a camel). One of these personages stared fixedly at a skull, the other personagelooked with intense firmness away from a lady of scant charms in awhite and all too insufficient robe: above the robe a segment of thelady's bosom was hinted at bashfully--it was probably this thepersonage looked firmly away from. The remaining picture showed alittle girl seated in a big armchair and reading with profound culturethe most massive of bibles: she had her grandmother's mutch cap andspectacles on, and looked very sweet and solemn; a doll sat boltupright beside her, and on the floor a kitten hunted a ball of woolwith great earnestness. 

All these things Mrs. Makebelieve discussed to her daughter, as alsoof the carpet which might have been woven in Turkey or elsewhere, the sideboard that possibly was not mahogany, and the chairs andoccasional tables whose legs had attained to rickets throughconvulsions; the curtains of cream-colored lace which were reinforcedby rep hangings and guarded shutters from Venice, also the deer's headwhich stood on a shelf over the door and was probably shot by a memberof the family in a dream, and the splendid silver tankards whichflanked this trophy and were possibly made of tin. 

Mrs. Makebelieve further spoke of the personal characteristics of thehouseholder with an asperity which was still restrained. She had ahairy chin, said Mrs. Makebelieve: she had buck teeth and a solidsmile, and was given to telling people who knew their business howthings ought to be done. Beyond this she would not say anything. --Theamount of soap the lady allowed to wash out five rooms and a lengthystaircase was not as generous as one was accustomed to, but, possibly, she was well-meaning enough when one came to know her better. 

Mary Makebelieve, apropos of nothing, asked her mother did she everknow a girl who got married to a policeman, and did she think thatpolicemen were good men?

Her mother replied that policemen were greatly sought after ashusbands for several reasons--firstly, they were big men, and big menare always good to look upon; secondly, their social standing was veryhigh and their respectability undoubted; thirdly, a policeman's paywas such as would bring comfort to any household which was notneedlessly and criminally extravagant; and this was often supplementedin a variety of ways which rumor only hinted at: there was also thesafe prospect of a pension and the possibility of a sergeantship, where the emoluments were very great: and fourthly, a policeman, beingsubjected for many years to a rigorous discipline, would likely make anice and obedient husband. Personally Mrs. Makebelieve did not admirepolicemen--they thought too much of themselves, and their continualpursuit of and intercourse with criminals tended to deteriorate theirmoral tone; also, being much admired by a certain type of woman, theirmorals were subjected to so continuous an assault that the wife ofsuch a one would be worn to a shadow in striving to preserve herhusband from designing and persistent females. 

Mary Makebelieve said she thought it would be nice to have other womendying for love of one's husband, but her mother opposed this with thereflection that such people did not die for love at all, they weremerely anxious to gratify a foolish and excessive pride or to inflictpain on respectable married women. On the whole, a policeman was notan ideal person to marry. The hours at which he came home were liableto constant and vexatious changes, so that there was a continualfeeling of insecurity, which was bad for housekeeping; and if one hadnot stability in one's home all discipline and all real home life wasat an end. There was this to be said for them--that they all lovedlittle children. But, all things considered, a clerk made a betterhusband: his hours were regular and, knowing where he was at anymoment, one's mind was at ease. 

Mary Makebelieve was burning to tell some one of her adventure duringthe day, but although she had never before kept a secret from hermother she was unable to tell her this one. Something--perhaps themere difference of age, and also a kind of shyness--kept her silent. She wished she knew a nice girl of her own age, or even a littleyounger, to whose enraptured ear she might have confided her story. They would have hugged each other during the recital, and she wouldhave been able to enlarge upon a hundred trivialities of moustache andhair and eyes the wonder of which older minds can seldom appreciate. 

Her mother said she did not feel at all well. She did not know whatwas the matter with her, but she was more tired than she couldremember being for a long time. There was a dull aching in all herbones, a coldness in her limbs, and when she pressed her hairbackwards it hurt her head; so she went to bed much earlier than wasusual. But long after her regular time for sleep had passed MaryMakebelieve crouched on the floor before the few warm coals. She waslooking into the redness, seeing visions of rapture, strange thingswhich could not possibly be true; but these visions warmed her bloodand lifted her heart on light and tremulous wings; there was a singingin her ears to which she could never be tired listening. 

XII

Mrs. Makebelieve felt much better the next morning after the extrasleep which she had. She still confessed to a slight pain in her scalpwhen she brushed her hair and was a little languid, but not so much asto call for complaint. She sat up in bed while her daughter preparedthe breakfast and her tongue sped as rapidly as heretofore. She saidshe had a sort of feeling that her brother Patrick must come back fromAmerica some time, and she was sure that when he did return he wouldlose no time in finding out his relatives and sharing with them thewealth which he had amassed in that rich country. She had memories ofhis generosity even as a mere infant when he would always say "no" ifonly half a potato remained in the dish or a solitary slice of breadwas on the platter. She delighted to talk of his good looks and highspirits and of the amazingly funny things he had said and done. Therewas always, of course, the chance that Patrick had got married andsettled down in America, and, if so, that would account for so prolongeda silence. Wives always came between a man and his friends, and thiswoman would do all she could to prevent Patrick benefiting his ownsister and her child. Even in Ireland there were people like that, andthe more one heard of America the less one knew what to expect fromthe strange people who were native to that place. She had often thoughtshe would like to go out there herself, and, indeed, if she had a littlemoney she would think nothing of packing up her things to-morrow andsetting out for the States. There were fine livings to be made there, and women were greatly in request, both as servants and wives. It waswell known, too, that the Americans loved Irish people, and so therewould be no difficulty at all in getting a start. The more she thoughtof Mrs. O'Connor the more favorably she pondered on emigration. Shewould say nothing against Mrs. O'Connor yet, but the fact remained thatshe had a wen on her cheek and buck teeth. Either of these afflictionstaken separately were excusable, but together she fancied they betokena bad, sour nature; but maybe the woman was to be pitied: she might bea nice person in herself, but, then, there was the matter of the soap, and she was very fond of giving unnecessary orders. However, time wouldshow, and, clients being as scarce as they were, one could not quarrelwith one's bread and butter. 

The opening of a door and the stamping downstairs of heavy feet shotMrs. Makebelieve from her bed and into her clothing with furious speed. Within five minutes she was dressed, and after kissing her daughterthree times she fled down the stairs and away to her business. 

Mary had obtained her mother's consent to do as she pleased with thepiece of black velvet on the hem of her Sunday skirt, so she passedsome time in ripping this off and cleaning it. It would not come asfresh as she desired, and there were some parts of it frayed andrubbed so that the velvet was nearly lost, but other portions werequite good, and by cutting out the worn parts and neatly joining thegood pieces she at last evolved a quite passable sash. Having the sashready she dressed herself to see how it looked, and was delighted. Then becoming dissatisfied with the severe method of doing her hairshe manipulated it gently for a few minutes until a curl depended byboth ears and two or three very tiny ones fluttered above herforehead. She put on her hat and stole out, walking very gently forfear any of the other people in the house would peep through theirdoors as she went by. Walk as gently as she could these bare, solidstairs rang loudly to each footfall, and so she ended in a rush andwas out and away without daring to look if she was observed. She had asort of guilty feeling as she walked, which she tried to allay bysaying very definitely that she was not doing anything wrong. She saidto herself with determined candor that she would walk up to the St. Stephen's Green Park and look at the ducks and the flower-beds and theeels, but when she reached the quays she blushed deeply, and turningtowards the right went rapidly in the direction of the Phoenix Park. She told herself that she was not going in there, but would merelytake a walk by the river, cross at Island Bridge, and go back on theopposite side of the Liffey to the Green. But when she saw the broadsunlit road gleaming through the big gates she thought she would gofor a little way up there to look at the flowers behind the railings. As she went in a great figure came from behind the newspaper kioskoutside the gates and followed Mary up the road. When she paused tolook at the flowers the great figure halted also, and when she went onagain it followed. Mary walked past the Gough Statue and turned awayinto the fields and the trees, and here the figure lengthened itsstride. In the middle of the field a big shadow bobbed past hershoulder, and she walked on holding her breath and watching the shadowgrowing by queer forward jerks. In a moment the dull beat of feet ongrass banished all thought of the shadow, and then there came acheerful voice in her ears, and the big policeman was standing by herside. For a few moments they were stationary, making salutation andexcuse and explanation, and then they walked slowly on through thesunshine. Wherever there was a bush there were flowers on it. Everytree was thronged with birds that sang shrilly and sweetly in suddenthrills and clear sustained melodies, but in the open spaces thesilence was more wonderful; there was no bird note to come betweenMary and that deep voice, no shadow of a tree to swallow up their owntwo shadows; and the sunlight was so mildly warm, the air was so sweetand pure, and the little wind that hushed by from the mountains was atender and a peaceful wind. 

XIII

After that day Mary Makebelieve met her new friend frequently. Somehow, wherever she went, he was not far away; he seemed to springout of space--one moment she was alone watching the people passing andthe hurrying cars and the thronged and splendid shop windows, and thena big voice was booming down to her and a big form was pacingdeliberately by her side. Twice he took her into a restaurant and gaveher lunch. She had never been in a restaurant before, and it seemed toher like a place in fairyland. The semi-darkness of the retired roomsfaintly colored by tiny electric lights, the beautifully clean tablesand the strange foods, the neatly dressed waitresses with quick, deftmovements and gravely attentive faces--these things thrilled her. Shenoticed that the girls in the restaurant, in spite of their gravityand industry, observed both herself and the big man with the minutestinspection, and she felt that they all envied her the attentions of sosuperb a companion. In the street also she found that many peoplelooked at them, but, listening to his constant and easy speech, shecould not give these people the attention they deserved. 

When they did not go to the Park they sought the most reserved streetsor walked out to the confines of the town and up by the River Dodder. There are exquisitely beautiful places along the side of the Dodder:shy little harbors and backwaters, and now and then a miniaturewaterfall or a broad placid reach upon which the sun beats down likesilver. Along the river bank the grass grows rank and wildlyluxurious, and at this season, warmed by the sun, it was a splendidplace to sit. She thought she could sit there forever watching theshining river and listening to the great voice by her side. 

He told her many things about himself and about his comrades--thoseequally huge men. She could see them walking with slow vigor throughtheir barrack-yard, falling in for exercise or gymnastics or forschool. She wondered what they were taught, and who had sufficientimpertinence to teach giants, and were they ever slapped for notknowing their lessons? He told her of his daily work, the hours whenhe was on and off duty, the hours when he rose in the morning and whenhe went to bed. He told her of night duty, and drew a picture of theblank deserted streets which thrilled and frightened her . .. The tensedarkness, and how through the silence the sound of a footstep wasmagnified a thousandfold, ringing down the desolate pathways away andaway to the smallest shrill distinctness, and she saw also the alleysand lane-ways hooded in blackness, and the one or two human fragmentswho drifted aimless and frantic along the lonely streets, striving towalk easily for fear of their own thundering footsteps, cowering inthe vastness of the city, dwarfed and shivering beside the gaunthouses; the thousands upon thousands of black houses, each deadlysilent, each seeming to wait and listen for the morning, and eachteeming with men and women who slept in peace because he was walkingup and down outside, flashing his lantern on shop windows and feelingdoors to see if they were by any chance open. Now and again a stepfrom a great distance would tap-tap-tap, a far-off delicacy of sound, and either die away down echoing side streets or come clanking on towhere he stood, growing louder and clearer and more resonant, ringingagain and again in doubled and trebled echoes; while he, standing farback in a doorway, watched to see who was abroad at the dead ofnight--and then that person went away on his strange errand, hisfootsteps tramping down immense distances, till the last echo and thelast faint tremble of his feet eddied into the stillness. Now andagain a cat dodged gingerly along a railing, or a strayed dog slunkfearfully down the pathway, nosing everywhere in and out of thelamplight, silent and hungry and desperately eager. He told herstories also, wonderful tales of great fights and cunning tricks, ofmen and women whose whole lives were tricks, of people who did notknow how to live except by theft and violence; people who were born bystealth, who ate by subterfuge, drank by dodges, got married in anticsand slid into death by strange, subterranean passages. He told her thestory of the Two Hungry Men, and of The Sailor Who Had Been Robbed, and a funny tale about the Barber Who Had Two Mothers. He also toldher the stories of The Eight Tinkers, and of the Old Women Who StealFish at Nighttime, and the story of The Man He Let Off, and he toldher a terrible story of how he fought five men in a little room, andhe showed her a great livid scar hidden by his cap, and the marks inhis neck where he had been stabbed with a jagged bottle, and his wristwhich an Italian mad-man had thrust through and through with a dagger. 

But though he was always talking he was not always talking of himself. Through his conversation there ran a succession of queries--tinyslender questions which ran out of his stories and into her life. Questions so skillful and natural and spontaneous that only a girlcould discover the curiosity which prompted them. He wanted her name, her address, her mother's name, her father's name; had she otherrelatives, did she go to work yet, what was her religion, was it along time since she left school, and what was her mother's business?To all of these Mary Makebelieve answered with glad candor. She saweach question coming, and the personal curiosity lying behind it shedivined and was glad of. She would have loved to ask him personal andintimate questions about his parents, his brothers and sisters, andwhat he said when he said his prayers, and had he walked with othergirls, and, if so, what had he said to them, and what did he reallyand truly think of her? Her curiosity on all these points was abundantand eager, but she did not dare to even hint a question. 

One of the queries often touched upon by him she eluded--she shrankfrom it with something like terror--it was, "What was her mother'sbusiness?" She could not bear to say that her mother was a charwoman. It did not seem fitting. She suddenly hated and was ashamed of thisoccupation. It took on an aspect of incredible baseness. It seemed tobe the meanest employment wherein any one could be engaged; and sowhen the question, conveyed in a variety of ways, had to be answeredit was answered with reservations--Mary Makebelieve told him a lie. She said her mother was a dressmaker. 

XIV

One night when Mrs. Makebelieve came home she was very low-spiritedindeed. She complained once more of a headache and of a languor whichshe could not account for. She said it gave her all the trouble in theworld to lift a bucket. It was not exactly that she could not lift abucket, but that she could scarcely close her mind down to the factthat a bucket had to be lifted. Some spring of willingness seemed tobe temporarily absent. To close her two hands on a floor-cloth andtwist it into a spiral in order to wring it thoroughly was a thingwhich she found herself imagining she could do if she liked, but hadnot the least wish to do. These duties, even when she was engaged inthem, had a curious quality of remoteness. The bucket into which herhand had been plunged a moment before seemed somehow incrediblydistant. To lift the soap lying beside the bucket one would require anarm of more than human reach, and having washed, or rather dabbed, ata square of flooring, it was a matter of grave concern how to reachthe unwashed part just beyond without moving herself. This languoralarmed her. The pain in her head, while it was severe, did not reallymatter. Every one had pains and aches, sores and sprains, but thisunknown weariness and disinclination for the very slightest exertiongave her a fright. 

Mary tempted her to come out and watch the people going into theGayety Theater. She said a certain actor was playing whom all thewomen of Dublin make pilgrimages, even from distant places, to lookat; and by going at once they might be in time to see him arriving ina motor car at the stage door, when they could have a good look at himgetting out of the car and going into the theater. At these tidingsMrs. Makebelieve roused for a moment from her strange apathy. Sincetea-time she had sat (not as usual upright and gesticulating, buthumped up and flaccid) staring at a blob of condensed milk on theoutside of the tin. She said she thought she would go out and see thegreat actor, although what all the women saw in him to go mad aboutshe did not know, but in another moment she settled back to herhumped-up position and restored her gaze to the condensed milk tin. With a little trouble Mary got her to bed, where, after being huggedfor one moment, she went swiftly and soundly to sleep. 

Mary was troubled because of her mother's illness, but, as it isalways difficult to believe in the serious illness of another personuntil death has demonstrated its gravity, she soon dismissed thematter from her mind. This was the more easily done because her mindwas teeming with impressions and pictures and scraps of dialogue. 

As her mother was sleeping peacefully, Mary put on her hat and wentout. She wanted, in her then state of mind, to walk in the solitudewhich can only be found in crowded places, and also she wanted somekind of distraction. Her days had lately been so filled with adventurethat the placid immobility of the top back room was not only irksome, but maddening, and her mother's hasty and troubled breathing camebetween her and her thoughts. The poor furniture of the room washideous to her eyes, the uncarpeted floor and bleak, stained wallsdulled her. 

She went out, and in a few moments was part of the crowd which passesand repasses nightly from the Rotunda up the broad pathways ofSackville Street, across O'Connell Bridge, up Westmoreland Street, past Trinity College, and on through the brilliant lights of GraftonStreet to the Fusiliers' Arch at the entrance to St. Stephen's GreenPark. Here from half-past seven o'clock in the evening youthfulDublin marches in joyous procession. Sometimes bevies of young girlsdance by, each a giggle incarnate. A little distance behind these atroop of young men follow stealthily and critically. They will beacquainted and more or less happily paired before the Bridge isreached. But generally the movement is in couples. Appointments, dating from the previous night, have filled the streets with happy andcareless boys and girls--they are not exactly courting, they areenjoying the excitement of fresh acquaintance; old conversation ishere poured into new bottles, old jokes have the freshness of infancy, every one is animated, and polite to no one but his partner; thepeople they meet and pass and those who overtake and pass them are allsubjects for their wit and scorn, while they, in turn, furnish amoment's amusement and conversation to each succeeding couple. Constantly there are stoppages when very high-bred introductionsresult in a redistribution of the youngsters. As they move apart thewords "To-morrow night, " or "Thursday, " or "Friday, " are calledlaughingly back, showing that the late partner is not to be lost sightof utterly; and then the procession begins anew. 

Among these folk Mary Makebelieve passed rapidly. She knew that if shewalked slowly some partially elaborate gentleman would ask suddenlywhat she had been doing with herself since last Thursday? and wouldintroduce her as Kate Ellen to six precisely similar young gentlemen, who smiled blandly in a semi-circle six feet distant. This hadhappened to her once before, and as she fled the six young gentlemenhad roared "bow, wow, wow" after her, while the seventh mewedearnestly and with noise. 

She stood for a time watching the people thronging into the GayetyTheater. Some came in motor cars, others in carriages. Manyhearse-like cabs deposited weighty and respectable solemnities underthe glass-roofed vestibule. Swift outside cars buzzed on rubber tireswith gentlemen clad in evening dress, and ladies whose silken wrapsblew gently from their shoulders, and, in addition, a constantpedestrian stream surged along the pathway. From the shelter of anopposite doorway Mary watched these gayly animated people. She enviedthem all innocently enough, and wondered would the big policeman everask her to go to the theater with him, and if he did, would her motherlet her go. She thought her mother would refuse, but was dimly certainthat in some way she would manage to get out if such a delightfulinvitation were given her. She was dreaming of the alterations shewould make in her best frock in anticipation of such a treat when, half-consciously, she saw a big figure appear round the corner ofGrafton Street and walk towards the theater. It was he, and her heartjumped with delight. She prayed that he would not see her, and thenshe prayed that he would, and then, with a sudden, sickening coldness, she saw that he was not alone. A young, plump, rosy-cheeked girl wasat his side. As they came nearer the girl put her arm into his and saidsomething. He bent down to her and replied, and she flashed a laugh upat him. There was a swift interchange of sentences, and they bothlaughed together, then they disappeared into the half-crown door. 

Mary shrank back into the shadow of the doorway. She had a strangenotion that everybody was trying to look at her, and that they wereall laughing maliciously. After a few moments she stepped out on thepath and walked homewards quickly. She did not hear the noises of thestreets, nor see the promenading crowds. Her face was bent down as shewalked, and beneath the big brim of her straw hat her eyes wereblinded with the bitterest tears she had ever shed. 

XV

Next morning her mother was no better. She made no attempt to get outof bed, and listened with absolute indifference when the morning feetof the next-door man pounded the stairs. Mary awakened her again andagain, but each time, after saying "All right, dearie, " she relapsedto a slumber which was more torpor than sleep. Her yellow, old-ivoryface was faintly tinged with color; her thin lips were relaxed, andseemed a trifle fuller, so that Mary thought she looked better insickness than in health; but the limp arm lying on the patchwork quiltseemed to be more skinny than thin, and the hand was more waxen andclaw-like than heretofore. 

Mary laid the breakfast on the bed as usual, and again awakened hermother, who, after staring into vacancy for a few moments, forcedherself to her elbow, and then, with sudden determination, sat up inthe bed and bent her mind inflexibly on her breakfast. She drank twocups of tea greedily, but the bread had no taste in her mouth, andafter swallowing a morsel she laid it aside. 

"I don't know what's up with me at all, at all, " said she. 

"Maybe it's a cold, mother, " replied Mary. 

"Do I look bad, now?"

Mary scrutinized her narrowly. 

"No, " she answered, "your face is redder than it does be, and your eyesare shiny. I think you look splendid and well. What way do you feel?"

"I don't feel at all, except that I'm sleepy. Give me the glass in myhand, dearie, till I see what I'm like. "

Mary took the glass from the wall and handed it to her. 

"I don't look bad at all. A bit of color always suited me. Look at mytongue, though, it's very, very dirty; it's a bad tongue altogether. My mother had a tongue like that, Mary, when she died. "

"Have you any pain?" said her daughter. 

"No, dearie; there is a buzz in the front of my head as if somethingwas spinning round and round very quickly, and that makes my eyestired, and there's a sort of feeling as if my head was twice as heavyas it should be. Hang up the glass again. I'll try and get a sleep, and maybe I'll be better when I waken up. Run you out and get a bit ofsteak, and we'll stew it down and make beef tea, and maybe that willdo me good. Give me my purse out of the pocket of my skirt. "

Mary found the purse and brought it to the bed. Her mother opened itand brought out a thimble, a bootlace, five buttons, one sixpennypiece and a penny. She gave Mary the sixpence. 

"Get half a pound of leg beef, " said she, "and then we'll havefourpence left for bread and tea; no, take the other penny, too, andget half a pound of pieces at the butcher's for twopence and atwopenny tin of condensed milk, that's fourpence, and a three ha'pennyloaf and one penny for tea, that's sixpence ha'penny, and get onionswith the odd ha'penny, and we'll put them in the beef tea. Don'tforget, dearie, to pick lean bits of meat; them fellows do be alwaystrying to stick bits of bone and gristle on a body. Tell him it's forbeef tea for your mother, and that I'm not well at all, and ask howMrs. Quinn is; she hasn't been down in the shop for a long time. I'llgo to sleep now. I'll have to go to work in the morning whateverhappens, because there isn't any money in the house at all. Come homeas quick as you can, dearie. "

Mary dressed herself and went out for the provisions, but she did notbuy them at once. As she went down the street she turned suddenly, clasping her hands in a desperate movement, and walked very quicklyin the opposite direction. She turned up the side streets to thequays, and along these to the Park Gates. Her hands were clasping andunclasping in an agony of impatience, and her eyes roved busily hereand there, flying among the few pedestrians like lanterns. She wentthrough the gates and up the broad central path, and here she walkedmore slowly: but she did not see the flowers behind the railings, oreven the sunshine that bathed the world in glory. At the monument shesped a furtive glance down the road she had traveled--there was nobodybehind her. She turned into the fields, walking under trees which shedid not see, and up hills and down valleys without noticing theincline of either. At times, through the tatter of her mind thereblazed a memory of her mother lying sick at home, waiting for herdaughter to return with food, and at such memories she gripped herhands together frightfully and banished the thought. --A moment'sreflection and she could have hated her mother. 

It was nearly five o'clock before she left the Park. She walked in afog of depression. For hours she had gone hither and thither in thewell-remembered circle, every step becoming more wayward and aimless. The sun had disappeared, and a gray evening bowed down upon thefields; the little wind that whispered along the grass or swung thelight branches of the trees had a bleak edge to it. As she left thebig gates she was chilled through and through, but the memory of hermother now set her running homewards. For the time she forgot herquest among the trees and thought only, with shame and fear, of whather mother would say, and of the reproachful, amazed eyes which wouldbe turned on her when she went in. What could she say? She could notimagine anything. How could she justify a neglect which must appeargratuitous, cold-blooded, inexplicable?

When she had brought the food and climbed the resonant stairs shestood outside the door crying softly to herself. She hated to open thedoor. She could imagine her mother sitting up in the bed dazed andunbelieving, angry and frightened, imagining accidents and terrors, and when she would go in . .. She had an impulse to open the doorgently, leave the food just inside and run down the stairs out intothe world anywhere and never come back again. At last in desperationshe turned the handle and stepped inside. Her face flamed, the bloodburned her eyes physically so that she could not see through them. Shedid not look at the bed, but went direct to the fireplace, and with adogged patience began mending the fire. After a few stubborn momentsshe twisted violently to face whatever might come, ready to break intoangry reproaches and impertinences, but her mother was lying verystill. She was fast asleep, and a weight, an absolutely real pressure, was lifted from Mary's heart. Her fingers flew about the preparationof the beef tea. She forgot the man whom she had gone to meet. Herarms were tired and hungry to close around her mother. She wanted towhisper little childish words to her, to rock her to and fro on herbreast, and croon little songs and kiss her, and pat her face. 

XVI

Her mother did not get better. Indeed, she got worse. In addition tothe lassitude of which she had complained she suffered also from greatheat and great cold, and, furthermore, sharp pains darted so swiftlythrough her brows that at times she was both dizzy and sightless. Atwirling movement in her head prevented her from standing up. Hercenter of gravity seemed destroyed, for when she did stand andattempted to walk she had a strange bearing away on one side, so thaton striving to walk towards the door she veered irresistibly at leastfour feet to the left-hand side of that point. Mary Makebelieve helpedher back to bed, where she lay for a time watching horizontal linesspinning violently in front of her face, and these lines after a timecrossed and recrossed each other in so mazy and intricate a patternthat she became violently sick from the mere looking at them. 

All of these things she described to her daughter, tracing the queerpatterns which were spinning about her with such fidelity that Marywas almost able to see them. She also theorized about the cause andultimate effect of these symptoms, and explained the degrees of heatand cold which burned or chilled her, and the growth of a pain to itsexquisite startling apex, its subsequent slow recession, and the thudof an india-rubber hammer which ensued when the pain had ebbed to itseasiest level. It did not occur to either of them to send for adoctor. Doctors in such cases are seldom sent for, seldom even thoughtof. One falls sick according to some severely definite, implacable lawwith which it is foolish to quarrel, and one gets well again for noother reason than that it is impossible to be sick forever. As thenight struggles slowly into day so sickness climbs stealthily intohealth, and nature has a system of medicining her ailments which mightonly be thwarted by the ministrations of a mere doctor. Doctors alsoexpect payment for their services--an expectation so wildly beyond therange of common sense as to be ludicrous. Those who can scarcely fee abaker when they are in health can certainly not remunerate a physicianwhen they are ill. 

But, despite her sickness, Mrs. Makebelieve was worried with thepractical common politics of existence. The food purchased with herlast sevenpence was eaten beyond remembrance. The vital requirementsof the next day and the following day and of all subsequent daysthronged upon her, clamoring for instant attention. The wraith of alandlord sat on her bed demanding rent and threatening grislyalternatives. Goblins that were bakers and butchers and grocersgrinned and leered and jabbered from the corners of the room. 

Each day Mary Makebelieve went to the pawn office with something. Theylived for a time on the only capital they had--the poor furniture oftheir room. Everything which had even the narrowest margin of valuewas sold. Mary's dresses kept them for six days. Her mother's Sundayskirt fed them for another day. They held famine at bay with a patchworkquilt and a crazy washstand. A water-jug and a strip of oilcloth tinkledmomentarily against the teeth of the wolf and disappeared. The maw ofhunger was not incommoded by the window curtain. 

At last the room was as bare as a desert and almost as uninhabitable. A room without furniture is a ghostly place. Sounds made therein areuncanny, even the voice puts off its humanity and rings back with ableak and hollow note, an empty resonance tinged with the frost ofwinter. There is no other sound so deadly, so barren and dispiritingas the echoes of an empty room. The gaunt woman in the bed seemedless gaunt than her residence, and there was nothing more to be sentto the pawnbroker or the secondhand dealer. 

A post-card came from Mrs. O'Connor requesting, in a peremptorylanguage customary to such communications, that Mrs. Makebelieve wouldplease call on her the following morning before eight o'clock. Mrs. Makebelieve groaned as she read it. It meant work and food and therepurchase of her household goods, and she knew that on the followingmorning she would not be able to get up. She lay a while thinking, andthen called her daughter. 

"Deary, " said she, "you will have to go to this place in the morningand try what you can do. Tell Mrs. O'Connor that I am sick, and thatyou are my daughter and will do the work, and try and do the best youcan for a while. "

She caught her daughter's head down to her bosom and wept over her, for she saw in this work a beginning and an end, the end of thelittle daughter who could be petted and rocked and advised, thebeginning of a womanhood which would grow up to and beyond her, whichwould collect and secrete emotions and aspirations and adventures notto be shared even by a mother, and she saw the failure which this workmeant, the expanding of her daughter's life ripples to a bleak andmiserable horizon where the clouds were soapsuds and floor cloths, andthe beyond a blank resignation only made energetic by hunger. 

"Oh, my dear, " said she, "I hate to think of you having to do suchwork, but it will only be for a while, a week, and then I will be wellagain. Only a little week, my love, my sweetheart, my heart's darling. "

XVII

Early on the following morning Mary Makebelieve awakened with a start. She felt as if some one had called her, and lay for a few moments tosee had her mother spoken. But her mother was still asleep. Herslumber was at all times almost as energetic as her wakening hours. She twisted constantly and moved her hands and spoke ramblingly. Oddinterjections, such as "ah, well, no matter, certainly not, and indeedaye, " shot from her lips like bullets, and at intervals a sarcasticsniff fretted or astonished her bedfellow into wakefulness. But now asshe lay none of these strenuous ejaculations were audible. Sighs only, weighty and deep drawn and very tired, broke on her lips and lapsedsadly into the desolate room. 

Mary Makebelieve lay for a time wondering idly what had awakened herso completely, for her eyes were wide open and every vestige of sleepwas gone from her brain; and then she remembered that on this morning, and for the first time in her life, she had to go to work. Thatknowledge had gone to bed with her and had awakened her with animperious urgency. In an instant she sprang out of bed, huddled onsufficient clothing for warmth, and set about lighting the fire. Shewas far too early awake, but could not compose herself to lie foranother moment in bed. She did not at all welcome the idea of going towork, but the interest attaching to a new thing, the freshness whichvitalizes for a time even the dreariest undertaking, prevented herfrom rueing with any bitterness her first day's work. To a youngperson even work is an adventure, and anything which changes the usualcurrent of life is welcome. The fire also went with her; in quite ashort time the flames had gathered to a blaze, and matured, andconcentrated to the glowing redness of perfect combustion, then, whenthe smoke had disappeared with the flames, she put on the saucepan ofwater. Quickly the saucepan boiled, and she wet the tea. She cut thebread into slices, put a spoonful of condensed milk into each cup, andawakened her mother. 

All through the breakfast her mother advised her on the doing of herwork. She cautioned her daughter when scrubbing woodwork always toscrub against the grain, for this gave a greater purchase to the brush, and removed the dirt twice as quickly as the seemingly easy oppositemovement. She told her never to save soap. Little soap meant muchrubbing, and advised that she should scrub two minutes with one handand then two minutes with the other hand, and she was urgent on thenecessity of thoroughness in the wringing out of one's floor cloth, because a dry floor cloth takes up twice as much water as a wet one, and thus lightens labor; also she advised Mary to change her positionsas frequently as possible to avoid cramp when scrubbing, and to kneelup or stand up when wringing her cloths, as this would give her a rest, and the change of movement would relieve her very greatly, and aboveall to take her time about the business, because haste seldom resultedin clean work, and was never appreciated by one's employer. 

Before going out Mary Makebelieve had to arrange for some one to lookafter her mother during the day. This is an arrangement which, amongpoor people, is never difficult of accomplishment. The first to whomshe applied was the laboring man's wife in the next room; she was avast woman with six children and a laugh like the rolling of a greatwind, and when Mary Makebelieve advanced her request she shook sixchildren off her like toys and came out on the landing. 

"Run off to your work now, honey, " said she, "and let you be easy inyour mind about your mother, for I'll go up to her this minute, and whenI'm not there myself I'll leave one of the children with her to call meif she wants anything, and don't you be fretting at all, God help you!for she'll be as safe and as comfortable with me as if she was in JervisStreet Hospital or the Rotunda itself. What's wrong with her now? Is ita pain in her head she has or a sick stomach, God help her?"

Mary explained briefly, and as she went down the stairs she saw thebig woman going into her mother's room. 

She had not been out in the streets so early before, and had neverknown the wonder and beauty of the sun in the early morning. Thestreets were almost deserted, and the sunlight--a most delicate andnearly colorless radiance--fell gently on the long silent paths. Missing the customary throng of people and traffic she seemed almostin a strange country, and had to look twice for turnings which shecould easily have found with her eyes shut. The shutters were up inall the shops and the blinds were down in most of the windows. Now andagain a milk cart came clattering and rattling down a street, and nowand again a big red-painted baker's cart dashed along the road. Suchfew pedestrians as she met were poorly dressed men, who carried tommycans and tools, and they were all walking at a great pace, as if theyfeared they were late for somewhere. Three or four boys passed herrunning; one of these had a great lump of bread in his hand, and as heran he tore pieces off the bread with his teeth and ate them. Thestreets looked cleaner than she had thought they could look, and thehouses seemed very quiet and beautiful. When she came near a policemanshe looked at him keenly from a distance, hoping and fearing that itmight be her friend, but she did not see him. She had a sinkingfeeling at the thought that maybe he would be in the Phoenix Parkthis day looking for her, and might, indeed, have been there for thepast few days, and the thought that he might be seeking for herunavailingly stabbed through her mind like a pain. It did not seemright, it was not in proportion, that so big a man should seek for amere woman and not find one instantly to hand. It was pitiful to thinkof the huge man looking on this side and on that, peering behind treesand through distances, and thinking that maybe he was forgotten orscorned. Mary Makebelieve almost wept at the idea that he should fancyshe scorned him. She wondered how, under such circumstances, a smallgirl can comfort a big man. One may fondle his hand, but that ismiserably inadequate. She wished she was twice as big as he was, sothat she might lift him bodily to her breast and snuggle and hug himlike a kitten. So comprehensive an embrace alone could atone forinjury to a big man's feelings. 

In about twenty minutes she reached Mrs. O'Connor's house and knocked. She had to knock half a dozen times before she was admitted, and onbeing admitted had a great deal of trouble explaining who she was, andwhy her mother had not come, and that she was quite competent toundertake the work. She knew the person who opened the door for herwas not Mrs. O'Connor, because she had not a hairy wart on her chin, nor had she buck teeth. After a little delay she was brought to thescullery and given a great pile of children's clothing to wash, andafter starting this work she was left to herself for a long time. 

XVIII

It was a dark house. The windows were all withered away behind stiffcurtains, and the light that labored between these was chastened tothe last degree of respectability. The doors skulked behind heavyplush hangings. The floors hid themselves decently under thick red andblack carpets, and the margins which were uncarpeted were disguised bybeeswax, so that no one knew they were there at all. The narrow hallwas steeped in shadow, for there two black velvet portieres, atdistances of six feet apart, depended from rods in the ceiling. Similar palls flopped on each landing of the staircase, and no soundwas heard in the house at all, except dim voices that droned fromsomewhere, muffled and sepulchral and bodyless. 

At ten o'clock, having finished the washing, Mary was visited by Mrs. O'Connor, whom she knew at once by the signs she had been warned of. The lady subjected each article that had been washed to a particularscrutiny, and, with the shadowy gallop of a smile that dashed into andout of sight in an instant, said they would do. She then conductedMary to the kitchen and, pointing to a cup of tea and two slices ofbread, invited her to breakfast, and left her for six minutes, whenshe reappeared with the suddenness of a marionette and directed her towash her cup and saucer, and then to wash the kitchen, and thesethings also Mary did. 

She got weary very soon, but not dispirited, because there were manythings to look at in the kitchen. There were pots of various sizes andmetals, saucepans little and big, jugs of all shapes, and a regimentof tea things were ranged on the dresser; on the walls were hung greatpot lids like the shields of barbarous warriors which she had seen ina story book. Under the kitchen table there was a row of boots allwrinkled by usage, and each wearing a human and almost intelligentaspect--a well-wrinkled boot has often an appearance of mad humanitywhich can chain and almost hypnotize the observer. As she lifted theboots out of her way she named each by its face. There was Grubtoes, Sloucher, Thump-thump, Hoppit, Twitter, Hide-away, and Fairybell. 

While she was working a young girl came into the kitchen and took upthe boots called Fairybell. Mary just tossed a look at her as sheentered and bent again to her washing. Then with an extremeperturbation she stole another look. The girl was young and as trim asa sunny garden. Her face was packed with laughter and freedom, like ayoung morning when tender rosy clouds sail in the sky. She walked witha light spring of happiness; each step seemed the beginning of adance, light and swift and certain. Mary knew her in a pang, and herbent face grew redder than the tiles she was scrubbing. Like lightningshe knew her. Her brain swung in a clamor of "where, where?" and evenin the question she had the answer, for this was the girl she had seengoing into the Gayety Theater swinging on the arm of her bigpoliceman. The girl said good morning to her in a kindly voice, andMary with a swift, frightened glance, whispered back good morning, then the girl went upstairs again, and Mary continued to scrub thefloor. 

When the kitchen was finished and inspected and approved of, she wasinstructed to wash out the front hall, and set about the work at once. 

"Get it done as quickly as you can, " said the mistress, "I amexpecting my nephew here soon, and he dislikes washing. "

So Mary bent quickly to her work. She was not tired now. Her handsmoved swiftly up and down the floor without effort. Indeed, heractions were almost mechanical. The self that was thinking and probingseemed somehow apart from the body bending over the bucket, and thehands that scrubbed and dipped and wrung. She had finished about threequarters of the hall when a couple of sharp raps came to the door. Mrs. O'Connor flew noiselessly up from the kitchen. 

"I knew, " said she, bitterly, "that you would not be finished beforehe came. Dry that puddle at once, so that he can walk in, and take thesoap out of the way. "

She stood with her hand on the door while Mary followed thesedirections, then, when a couple of hasty movements had removed thesurplus water, Mrs. O'Connor drew the bolt and her nephew entered. Mary knew him on the doorstep, and her blood froze in terror andboiled again in shame. 

Mrs. O'Connor drew the big policeman inside and kissed him. 

"I can't get these people to do things in time, " said she. "They arethat slow. Hang up your hat and coat and come into the parlor. "

The policeman, with his eyes fixed steadily on Mary, began to take offhis coat. His eyes, his moustache, all his face and figure seemed tobe looking at her. He was an enormous and terrifying interrogation. Hetapped his tough moustache and stepped over the bucket; at the entranceto the parlor he stood again and hung his monstrous look on her. Heseemed about to speak, but it was to Mrs. O'Connor his words went. 

"How's everything?" said he, and then the door closed behind him. 

Mary, with extraordinary slowness, knelt down again beside the bucketand began to scrub. She worked very deliberately, sometimes cleaningthe same place two or three times. Now and again she sighed, butwithout any consciousness of trouble. These were sighs which did notseem to belong to her. She knew she was sighing, but could notexactly see how the dull sounds came from her lips when she had nodesire to sigh and did not make any conscious effort to do so. Hermind was an absolute blank, she could think of nothing but the bubbleswhich broke on the floor and in the bucket, and the way the watersqueezed down from the cloth. There was something she could havethought about if she wanted to, but she did not want to. 

Mrs. O'Connor came out in, a few minutes, inspected the hall and saidit would do. She paid Mary her wages and told her to come again thenext day, and Mary went home. As she walked along she was very carefulnot to step on any of the lines on the pavement; she walked betweenthese, and was distressed because these lines were not equally distantfrom each other, so that she had to make unequal paces as she went. 

XIX

The name of the woman from next door was Mrs. Cafferty. She was bigand round, and when she walked her dress whirled about her like atempest. She seemed to be always turning round; when she was goingstraight forward in any direction, say towards a press, she would turnaside midway so sharply that her clothing spun gustily in herwake--This probably came from having many children. A mother iscontinually driving in oblique directions from her household employmentsto rescue her children from a multitude of perils. An infant and afireplace act upon each other like magnets; a small boy is always tryingto eat a kettle or a piece of coal or the backbone of a herring; alittle girl and a slop bucket are in immediate contact; the baby has aknife in its mouth; the twin is on the point of swallowing a marble, oris trying to wash itself in the butter, or the cat is about to take anap on its face. Indeed, the woman who has six children never knows inwhat direction her next step must be, and the continual strain ofpreserving her progeny converts many a one into regular cyclones ofeyes and arms and legs. It also induces in some a perpetual good-humoredirritability wherein one can slap and cuddle a child in the sameinstant, or shout threateningly or lovingly, call warningly and murmurencouragingly in an astonishing sequence. The woman with six childrenmust both physically and mentally travel at a tangent, and when ahusband has to be badgered or humored into the bargain, then the lifeof such a woman is more complex than is readily understood. 

When Mary came home Mrs. Cafferty was sitting on her mother's bed, twosmall children and a cat were also on the bed, two slightly biggerchildren were under the bed, and two others were galloping furiouslyup and down the room. At one moment these latter twain were runawayhorses, at another they were express trains. When they were horsesthey snorted and neighed and kicked, when they were trains they backedand shunted, blew whistles and blew off steam. The children under thebed were tigers in a jungle, and they made the noises proper to suchbeasts and such a place; they bit each other furiously, and howled andgrowled precisely as tigers do. The pair of infants on the bed wereplaying the game of bump; they would stand upright, then spring highinto the air and come crashing down on the bed, which then sprung thempartly up again. Each time they jumped they screamed loudly, each timethey fell they roared delighted congratulations to each other, andwhen they fell together they fought with strong good humor. Sometimesthey fell on Mrs. Makebelieve; always they bumped her. At the side ofthe bed their mother sat telling with a gigantic voice a story whereinher husband's sister figured as the despicable person she was to theeye of discernment, and this story was punctuated and shot through anddislocuted by objurgations, threats, pleadings, admirations, alarmsand despairs addressed to the children separately and en masse, byname, nickname, and hastily created epithet. 

Mary halted in amazement in the doorway. She could not grasp all thepandemonium at once, and while she stood Mrs. Cafferty saw her. 

"Come on in, honey, " said she. "Your ma's as right as a trivet. Allshe wanted was a bit of good company and some children to play with. Deed, " she continued, "children are the best medicine for a woman thatI know of. They don't give you time to be sick, the creatures! PatrickJohn, I'll give you a smack on the side of the head if you don't letyour little sister alone, and don't you, Norah, be vexing him oryou'll deserve all you get. Run inside, Julia Elizabeth, cut a sliceof bread for the twins, and put a bit of sugar on it, honey. Yes, alanna, you can have a slice for yourself, too, you poor child you, well you deserve it. "

Mrs. Makebelieve was sitting up in the bed with two pillows proppingup her back. One of her long thin arms was stretched out to preservethe twins from being bruised against the wall in their play. Plainlythey had become great friends with her, for every now and then theyswarmed over her, and a hugging match of extreme complexity ensued. She looked almost her usual self, and all the animation that had beenso marked a feature of her personality had returned to her. 

"Are you better, mother?" said Mary. 

Mrs. Makebelieve took her daughter's head in her hands and kissed heruntil the twins butted them apart clamoring for caresses. 

"I am, honey, " said she. "Those children done me good. I could havegot up at one o'clock, I felt so well, but Mrs. Cafferty thought I'dbetter not. "

"I did so, " said Mrs. Cafferty. "Not a foot do you stir out of thatbed till your daughter comes home, ma'am, said I. For do you see, child, many's the time you'd be thinking you were well and feeling asfit as a fiddle, and nothing would be doing you but to be up andgallivanting about, and then the next day you'd have a relapse, andthe next day you'd be twice as bad, and the day after that they'd bemeasuring you for your coffin maybe. I knew a woman was taken likethat--up she got; I'm as well as ever I was, said she, and she ate afeed of pig's cheek and cabbage and finished her washing, and theyburied her in a week. It's the quare thing, sickness. What I say iswhen you're sick get into bed and stop there. "

"It's easy saying that, " said Mrs. Makebelieve. 

"Sure, don't I know, you poor thing you, " said Mrs. Cafferty, "butyou should stay in bed as long as you are able to anyhow. "

"How did you get on with Mrs. O'Connor?" said Mrs. Makebelieve. 

"That's the mistress, isn't it?" queried Mrs. Cafferty; "an oulddevil, I'll bet you. "

Mrs. Makebelieve rapidly and lightly sketched Mrs. O'Connor's leadingpeculiarities. 

"It's queer the people one has to work for, God knows it is, " saidMrs. Cafferty. 

At this point a grave controversy on work might have arisen, but thechildren, caring little for conversation, broke into so tumultuousplay that talk could not be proceeded with. Mary was enticed into agame composed in part of pussy-four-corners and tip-an-tig, with ageneral flavor of leap-frog working through. In five minutes her hairand her stockings were both down, and the back of her skirt had crawledthree-quarters round to the front. The twins shouted and bumped on thebed, upon which and on Mrs. Makebelieve they rubbed bread and butterand sugar, while their mother roared an anecdote at Mrs. Makebelievein tones that ruled the din as a fog horn rules the waves. 

XX

Mary had lavished the entire of her first day's wages on delicatefoods wherewith to tempt her mother's languid appetite, and when themorning dawned she arose silently, lit the fire, wet the tea andspread her purchases out on the side of the bed. There was a slice ofbrawn, two pork sausages, two eggs, three rashers of bacon, a bun, apennyworth of sweets and a pig's foot. These, with bread, and butter, and tea, made a collection amid which an invalid might browse withsome satisfaction. Mary then awakened her, and sat by in a dream ofhappiness watching her mother's eye roll slowly and unbelievingly fromitem to item. Mrs. Makebelieve tipped each article with her firstfinger and put its right name on it unerringly. Then she picked out animportant looking sweet that had four colors and shone like the sun, and put it in her mouth. 

"I never saw anything like it, you good child you, " said she. 

Mary rocked herself to and fro and laughed loudly for delight, andthen they ate a bit of everything, and were very happy. 

Mrs. Makebelieve said that she felt altogether better that morning. She had slept like a top all through the night, and, moreover, had adream wherein she saw her brother Patrick standing on the remotest seapoint of distant America, from whence he had shouted loudly across theocean that he was coming back to Ireland soon, that he had succeededvery well indeed, and that he was not married. He had not changed inthe slightest degree, said Mrs. Makebelieve, and he looked as youngand as jolly as when he was at home with her father and herself in theCounty Meath twenty-two years before. This mollifying dream and theeasy sleep which followed it had completely restored her health andspirits. Mrs. Makebelieve further intimated that she intended to go towork that day. It did not fit in with her ideas of propriety that herchild should turn into a charwoman, the more particularly as there wasa strong--an almost certain--possibility of an early betterment of herown and her daughter's fortunes. 

Dreams, said Mrs. Makebelieve, did not come for nothing. There wasmore in dreams than was generally understood. Many and many were thedreams which she herself had been visited by, and they had come trueso often that she could no longer disregard their promises, admonishments or threats. Of course many people had dreams which wereof no consequence, and these could usually be traced to gluttony or aflighty inconstant imagination. Drunken people, for instance, oftendreamed strange and terrible things, but, even while they were awake, these people were liable to imaginary enemies whom their clouded eyesand intellects magnified beyond any thoughtful proportions, and whenthey were asleep their dreams would also be subject to this haze andwhirl of unreality and hallucination. 

Mary said that sometimes she did not dream at all, and at other timesshe dreamed very vividly, but usually could not remember what thedream had been about when she awakened, and once she had dreamed thatsome one gave her a shilling which she placed carefully under herpillow, and this dream was so real that in the morning she put herhand under the pillow to see if the shilling was there, but it wasnot. The very next night she dreamed the same dream, and as she putthe phantom money under her pillow she said out loudly to herself, "Iam dreaming this, and I dreamt it last night also. " Her mother said ifshe had dreamt it for the third time some one would have given her ashilling surely. To this Mary agreed, and admitted that she had triedvery hard to dream it on the third night, but somehow could not do it. 

"When my brother comes home from America, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, "we'll go away from this part of the city at once. I suppose he'd wanta rather big house on the south side--Rathfarnham or Terenure way, or, maybe, Donnybrook. Of course he'll ask me to mind the house for himand keep the servants in order, and provide a different dinner everyday, and all that; while you could go out to the neighbors' places toplay lawn tennis or cricket, and have lunch. It will be a very greatresponsibility. "

"What kind of dinners would you have?" said Mary. 

Mrs. Makebelieve's eyes glistened, and she leaned forward in the bed;but just as she was about to reply the laboring man in the next roomslammed his door, and went thundering down the stairs. In an instantMrs. Makebelieve bounded from her bed; three wide twists put up herhair, eight strange billow-like movements put on her clothes; as eacharticle of clothing reached a definite point on her person Marystabbed it swiftly with a pin--four ordinary pins in this place, twosafety pins in that: then Mrs. Makebelieve kissed her daughter sixteentimes and fled down the stairs and away to her work. 

XXI

In a few minutes Mrs. Cafferty came into the room. She was, as everywoman is in the morning, primed with conversation about husbands, forin the morning husbands are unwieldy, morose creatures without joy, without lightness, lacking even the common, elemental interest intheir own children, and capable of detestably misinterpreting theconversation of their wives. It is only by mixing amongst other menthat this malignant humor may be dispelled. To them the company of menis like a great bath into which a husband will plunge wildly, renouncingas he dives wives and children, all anchors and securities of hearth androof, and from which he again emerges singularly refreshed and capableof being interested by a wife, a family, and a home until the nextmorning. To many women this is a grievance amounting often to anaffront, and although they endeavor, even by cooking, to heal thesingular breach, they are utterly unable to do so, and perpetually seekthe counsel of each other on the subject. Mrs. Cafferty had merely askedher husband would he hold the baby while she poured out his stirabout, and he had incredibly threatened to pour the stirabout down the back ofher neck if she didn't leave him alone. 

It was upon this morning madness she had desired to consult herfriend, and when she saw that Mrs. Makebelieve had gone away herdisappointment was quite evident. But this was only for a moment. Almost all women are possessed of a fine social sense in relation toother women. They are always on their best behavior towards oneanother. Indeed, it often seems as if they feared and must by allpossible means placate each other by flattery, humor or a serioustactfulness. There is very little freedom between them, because thereis no real freedom or acquaintance but between things polar. There isnothing but a superficial resemblance between like and like, butbetween like and unlike there is space wherein both curiosity andspirit may go adventuring. Extremes must meet, it is their urgentnecessity; the reason for their distance, and the greater the distancebetween them, the swifter will be their return and the warmer theirimpact: they may shatter each other to fragments or they may fuse andbecome indissoluble and new and wonderful, but there is no otherfertility. Between the sexes there is a really extraordinary freedomof intercourse. They meet each other something more than half way. Aman and a woman may become quite intimate in a quarter of an hour. Almost certainly they will endeavor to explain themselves to eachother before many minutes have elapsed; but a man and a man will notdo this, and even less so will a woman and a woman, for these are theparallel lines which never meet. The acquaintanceship of the latter, in particular, often begins and ends in an armed and calculatingneutrality. They preserve their distances and each others' suffrage bythe exercise of a grave social tact which never deserts them, andwhich more than anything else has contributed to build the ceremonialswhich are nearly one-half of our civilization. It is a common beliefamongst men that women cannot live together without quarreling, andthat they are unable to get work done by other women with any of thegood will which men display in the same occupations. If this is true, the reason should not be looked for in any intersexual complications, such as fear or an acrid rivalry, but only in the perpetuallyrecurring physical disturbances to which, as a sex, they aresubjected; and as the ability and willingness of a man to use hisfists in response to an affront has imposed sobriety and good humortowards each other in almost all their relations, so women have placedbarriers of politeness and ceremonial between their fellow-women andtheir own excoriated sensibilities. 

Mrs. Cafferty, therefore, dissembled her disappointment, and with anincreased cordiality addressed herself towards Mary. Sitting down onthe bedside she discoursed on almost every subject upon which a womanmay discourse. It is considered that the conversation of women, whileincessant in its use, is rigorously bounded between the parlor and thekitchen, or, to be more precise, between the attic and the scullery, but these extremes are more inclusive than is imagined, for the attichas an outlook on the stars while the scullery usually opens on thekitchen garden or the dust heap--vistas equal to horizons. Themysteries of death and birth occupy women far more than is the casewith men, to whom political and mercantile speculations are morecongenial. With immediate buying and selling, and all the absoluteforms of exchange and barter, women are deeply engaged, so that therealities of trade are often more intelligent to them than to manymerchants. If men understood domestic economy half as well as womendo, then their political economy and their entire consequentstatecraft would not be the futile muddle which it is. 

It was all very interesting to Mary, and, moreover, she had a greatdesire for companionship at the moment. If she had been left alone itmight have become necessary to confront certain thoughts, memories, pictures, from which she had a dim idea it would be wise to keep herdistance. Her work on the previous day, the girl she had met in thehouse, the policeman--from all or any of these recollections sheswerved mentally. She steadily rejected all impressions that touchedupon these. The policeman floated vaguely on her consciousness not asa desirable person, not even as a person but as a distance, as anhour of her childhood, as a half-forgotten quaintness, a memory whichit would be better should never be revived. Indeed her faint thoughtshadowed him as a person who was dead, and would never again bevisible to her anywhere. So, resolutely, she let him drop down intoher mind to some uncomfortable oubliette from whence he threatenedwith feeble insistence to pop up at any moment like a strange questionor a sudden shame. She hid him in a rosy flush which a breath couldhave made flame unbearably, and she hid from him behind the lightgarrulity of Mrs. Cafferty, through which now and again, as through aveil, she saw the spike of his helmet, a wiry bristling moustache, asurge of great shoulders. On these ghostly indications she heaped atornado of words which swamped the wraith, but she knew he was waitingto catch her alone, and would certainly catch her, and the knowledgemade her hate him. 

XXII

Mrs. Cafferty suggested that she and Mary should go out together topurchase that day's dinner, and by the time she had draped hershoulders in a shawl, buried her head in a bonnet, cautioned all herbrood against going near the fireplace, the coal box and the slopbucket, cut a slice of bread for each of them, and placed each of themin charge of all the rest, Mary's more elaborate dressing was withintwo stages of her hat. 

"Wait until you have children, my dear, " said Mrs. Cafferty, "youwon't be so pernickety then. " She further told Mary that when she washerself younger she had often spent an hour and a half doing up herhair, and she had been so particular that the putting on of a blouseor the pinning of a skirt to a belt had tormented her happily for twohours. "But, bless you, " she roared, "you get out of all that when youget children. Wait till you have six of them to be dressed everymorning, and they with some of their boots lost and the rest of themmixed up, and each of them wriggling like an eel on a pan until youhave to slap the devil out of them before their stocking can be goton: the way they screw their toes up in the wrong places! and the waythey squeal that you're pinching them! and the way that they sayyou've rubbed soap in their eyes!"--Mrs. Cafferty lifted her eyes andher hands to the ceiling in a dumb remonstrance with Providence, anddropped them again forlornly as one in whom Providence had never beenreally interested--"You'll have all the dressing you want and a bitover for luck, " said she. 

She complimented Mary on her hair, her complexion, the smallness ofher feet, the largeness of her eyes, the slenderness of her waist, the width of her hat and of her shoe strings: so impartially andinclusively did she compliment her that by the time they went out Marywas rosy with appreciation and as self-confident as a young girl isentitled to be. 

It was a beautiful gray day with a massy sky which seemed as if itnever could move again or change, and, as often happens in Ireland incloudy weather, the air was so very clear that one could see to agreat distance. On such days everything stands out in sharp outline. Astreet is no longer a congery of houses huddling shamefully togetherand terrified lest any one should look at them and laugh. Each housethen recaptures its individuality. The very roadways are aware ofthemselves and bear their horses, and cars, and trams in a competentspirit, adorned with modesty as with a garland. It has a beauty beyondsunshine, for sunshine is only youth and carelessness. The impress ofa thousand memories, the historic visage becomes apparent: the quietface which experience has ripened into knowledge and mellowed into thewisdom of charity is seen then: the great social beauty shines fromthe streets under this sky that broods like a thoughtful forehead. 

While they walked Mrs. Cafferty planned, as a general might, hercampaign of shopping. Her shopping differed greatly from Mrs. Makebelieve's, and the difference was probably caused by her necessityto feed and clothe eight people as against Mrs. Makebelieve's two. Mrs. Makebelieve went to the shop nearest her house, and there enteredinto a stanch personal friendship with the proprietor. When she wasgiven anything of doubtful value or material she instantly returnedand handed it back, and the prices which were first quoted to her andsettled upon became to Mrs. Makebelieve an unalterable standard fromwhich no departure would be tolerated. Eggs might go up in price forthe remainder of the world, but not for her. A change of price threwMrs. Makebelieve into so wide-eyed, so galvanic, so power fully-verbaland friendship-shattering an anger that her terms were accepted andregistered as Median exactitudes. Mrs. Cafferty, on the other hand, knew shopkeepers as personal enemies and as foes to the human race, who were bent on despoiling the poor, and against whom a remorselesswarfare should be conducted by all decent people. Her knowledge ofmaterial, of quality, of degrees of freshness, of local and distantprices was profound. In Clanbrassil Street she would quote the pricesof Moore Street with shattering effect, and if the shopkeeper declinedto revise his tariff her good-humored voice toned so huge adisapproval that other intending purchasers left the shop impressed bythe unmasking of a swindler. Her method was abrupt. She seized anarticle, placed it on the counter and uttered these words, "Sixpenceand not a penny more; I can get it in Moore Street for five pence halfpenny. " She knew all the shops having a cheap line in some specialarticle, and, therefore, her shopping was of a very extendeddescription, not that she went from point to point, for shecontinually departed from the line of battle with the remark "Let'stry what they have here, " and when inside the shop her large eye tookin at a glance a thousand details of stock and price which were neverafterwards forgotten. 

Mrs. Cafferty's daughter, Norah, was going to celebrate her firstCommunion in a few days. This is a very important ceremony for a younggirl and for her mother. A white muslin dress and a blue sash, a whitemuslin hat with blue ribbons, tan shoes, and stockings as germane tothe color of tan as may be--these all have to be provided. It is atime of grave concern for everybody intimately connected with theevent. Every girl in the world has performed this ceremony: they haveall been clad in these garments and shoes, and for a day or so allwomen, of whatever age, are in love with the little girl making herfirst Communion. Perhaps more than anything else it swings the passingstranger back to the time when she was not a woman but a child withpresent gayety and curiosity, and a future all expectation andadventure. Therefore, the suitable appareling of one's daughter is apublic duty, and every mother endeavors to do the thing that is right, and live, if only for one day, up to the admiration of herfellow-creatures. 

It was a trial, but an enjoyable one, to Mrs. Cafferty and Mary, thismatching of tan stockings with tan shoes. The shoes were bought, andthen an almost impossible quest began to find stockings which wouldexactly go with them. Thousands of boxes were opened, ransacked andwaved aside without the absolute color being discovered. From shop toshop and from street to street they went, and the quest led themthrough Grafton Street en route to a shop where months before Mrs. Cafferty had seen stockings of a color so nearly approximating to tanthat they almost might be suitable. 

As they went past the College and entered the winding street Mary'sheart began to beat. She did not see any of the traffic flowing up anddown, or the jostling, busy foot passengers, nor did she hear theeager lectures of her companion. Her eyes were straining up the streettowards the crossing. She dared not turn back or give any explanationto Mrs. Cafferty, and in a few seconds she saw him, gigantic, calm, adequate, the monarch of his world. His back was turned to her, andthe great sweep of his shoulders, his solid legs, his red neck andclose-cropped, wiry hair were visible to her strangely. She had apeculiar feeling of acquaintedness and of aloofness, intimateknowledge and a separation of sharp finality caused her to stare athim with so intent a curiosity that Mrs. Cafferty noticed it. 

"That's a fine man, " said she, "he won't have to go about looking forgirls. "

As she spoke they passed by the policeman, and Mary knew that when hereyes left him his gaze almost automatically fell upon her. She wasglad that he could not see her face. She was glad that Mrs. Caffertywas beside her: had she been alone she would have been tempted to walkaway very quickly, almost to run, but her companion gave her courageand self-possession, so that she walked gallantly. But her mind was afever. She could feel his eyes raking her from head to foot, she couldsee his great hand going up to tap his crinkly moustache. These thingsshe could see in her terrified mind, but she could not think, shecould only give thanks to God because she had her best clothes on. 

XXIII

Mrs. Makebelieve was planning to get back such of her furniture andeffects as had been pawned during her illness. Some of these thingsshe had carried away from her father's house many years before whenshe got married. They had been amongst the earliest objects on whichher eyes had rested when she was born, and around them her whole lifeof memories revolved. A chair in which her father had sat and on theedge whereof her husband had timidly balanced himself when he camecourting her, and into which her daughter had been tied when she was ababy. A strip of carpet and some knives and forks had formed portionof her wedding presents. She loved these things, and had determinedthat if work could retrieve them they should not be lost forever. Therefore, she had to suffer people like Mrs. O'Connor, not gladly, but with the resignation due to the hests of Providence which one mustobey but may legitimately criticise. Mrs. Makebelieve said definitelythat she detested the woman. She was a cold-eyed person whose onlyability was to order about other people who were much better than shewas. It distressed Mrs. Makebelieve to have to work for such a person, to be subject to her commands and liable to her reproofs or advice;these were things which seemed to her to be out of all due proportion. She did not wish the woman any harm, but some day or other she wouldundoubtedly have to put her in her proper place. It was a day to whichshe looked forward. Any one who had a sufficient income could have ahouse and could employ and pay for outside help without any particularreason for being proud, and many people, having such an income, wouldcertainly have a better appointed house and would be more generousand civil to those who came to work for them. Everybody, of course, could not have a policeman for a nephew, and there were a great manypeople who would rather not have anything to do with a policeman atall. Overbearing rough creatures to whom everybody is a thief! If Mrs. Makebelieve had such a nephew she would certainly have wrecked hispride--the great beast! Here Mrs. Makebelieve grew very angry: herblack eyes blazed, her great nose grew thin and white and her handswent leaping in fury. "You're not in Court now, you jackanapesyou, --said I, with his whiskers and his baton, and his feet that werebigger than anything in the world except his ignorant self-conceit. 'Have you a daughter, mam, said he, what's her age, mam, said he, isshe a good girl, mam, said he?'--but she had settled him, --and thatwoman was prouder of him than a king would be of his crown! nevermind, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, and she darted fiercely up and down theroom, tearing pieces off the atmosphere and throwing them behind her. 

In a few minutes, however, she sat down on the floor and drew herdaughter's head to her breast, and then, staring into the scrap offire, she counseled Mary wisely on many affairs of life and theconduct of a girl under all kinds of circumstances--to be adequate inspirit if not in physique: that was her theme. Never be a servant inyour heart, said she. To work is nothing; the king on his throne, thepriest kneeling before the Holy Altar, all people in all places had towork, but no person at all need be a servant. One worked and was paid, and went away keeping the integrity of one's soul unspotted andserene. If an employer was wise or good or kind Mrs. Makebelieve wasprepared to accord such a person instant and humble reverence. Shewould work for such a one until the nails dropped off her fingers andher feet crumpled up under her body; but a policeman or a richperson, or a person who ordered one about. .. ! until she died and wasburied in the depths of the world, she would never give in to such aperson or admit anything but their thievishness and ill-breeding. Badmanners to the like of them, said she, and might have sailedboisterously away upon an ocean of curses but that Mary turned herface closer to her breast and began to speak. 

For suddenly there had come to Mary a vision of peace: like a greenisland in the sea it was, like a white cloud on a broiling day; thesheltered life where all mundane preoccupations were far away, whereambition and hope and struggle were incredibly distant foolishness. Lowly and peaceful and unjaded was that life: she could see the nunspacing quietly in their enclosed gardens, fingering their beads asthey went to and fro and praying noiselessly for the sins of theworld, or walking with solemn happiness to the Chapel to praise Godin their own small companies, or going with hidden feet through thegreat City to nurse the sick and to comfort those who had no othercomforter than God--to pray in a quiet place, and not to be afraid anymore or doubtful or despised. .. ! These things she saw and her heartleaped to them, and of these things she spoke to her mother, wholistened with a tender smile and stroked her hair and hands. But hermother did not approve of these things. She spoke of nuns withreverence and affection. Many a gentle, sweet woman had she known ofthat sisterhood, many a one before whom she could have abased herselfwith tears and love, but such a life of shelter and restraint couldnever have been hers, nor did she believe it could be Mary's. For hera woman's business was life, the turmoil and strife of it was good tobe in, it was a cleansing and a bracing. God did not need anyassistance, but man did, bitterly he wanted it, and the giving ofsuch assistance was the proper business of a woman. Everywhere therewas a man to be helped, and the quest of a woman was to find the manwho most needed her aid, and having found him to cleave to himforever. In most of the trouble of life she divined men and women notknowing or not doing their duty, which was to love one another and tobe neighborly and obliging to their fellows. A partner, a home andchildren--through the loyal co-operation of these she saw happinessand, dimly, a design of so vast an architecture as scarcely to bediscussed. The bad and good of humanity moved her to an equal ecstasyof displeasure and approbation, but her God was Freedom and herreligion Love. Freedom! even the last rags of it that remain to aregimented world! That was a passion with her. She must order herpersonal life without any ghostly or bodily supervision. She wouldoppose an encroachment on that with her nails and her teeth; and thislast fringe of freedom was what nuns had sacrificed and all servantsand other people had bartered away. One must work, but one must neverbe a slave--these laws seemed to her equally imperative; the structureof the world swung upon them, and whoever violated these laws was atraitor to both God and man. 

But Mary did not say anything. Her mother's arms were around her, andsuddenly she commenced to cry upon a bosom that was not strange. Therewas surely healing in that breast of love, a rampart of tendernessagainst the world, a door which would never be closed against her oropened to her enemies. 

XXIV

In a little city like Dublin one meets every person whom one knowswithin a few days. Around each bend in the road there is a friend, anenemy, or a bore striding towards you, so that, with a piety which isalmost religious, one says "touch wood" before turning any corner. Itwas not long, therefore, until Mary again met the big policeman. Hecame up behind her and walked by her side, chatting with a pleasantease, in which, however, her curious mind could discover some obscuredistinctions. On looking backwards it seemed to Mary that he hadalways come from behind her, and the retrospect dulled his glory tothe diminishing point. For indeed his approach was too consistentlypolicemanlike, it was too crafty; his advent hinted at a grossespionage, at a mind which was no longer a man's but a detective'swho tracked everybody by instinct, and arrested his friends instead ofsaluting them. 

As they walked along Mary was in a fever of discomfort. She wisheddumbly that the man would go away, but for the wealth of the world shecould not have brought herself to hurt the feelings of so big a man. To endanger the very natural dignity of a big man was a thing which nowoman could do without a pang; the shame of it made her feel hot: hemight have blushed or stammered, and the memory of that would sting hermiserably for weeks as though she had insulted an elephant or a baby. 

She could not get away from him. She had neither the courage nor theexperience which enables a woman to dismiss a man without woundinghim, and so, perforce, she continued walking by his side while hetreated her to an intelligent dissertation on current political eventsand the topography of the city of Dublin. 

But, undoubtedly, there was a change in the policeman, and it was notdifficult to account for. He was more easy and familiar in his speech:while formerly he had bowed as from the peaks of manly intellect tothe pleasant valleys of girlish incompetence he now condescended fromthe loftiness of a policeman and a person of quality to the quaintgutters of social inferiority. To many people mental inferiority in acompanion has a charm, for it induces in one's proper person a feelingof philosophic detachment, a fine effect of personal individuality andsuperiority which is both bracing and uplifting--there is not anyparticular harm in this: progress can be, and is, accelerated by thehypocrisies and snobbishness, all the minor, unpleasant adjuncts ofmediocrity. Snobbishness is a puling infant, but it may grow to adeeply whiskered ambition, and most virtues are, on examination, theamalgam of many vices. But while intellectual poverty may be forgivenand loved, social inequality can only be utilized. Our fellows, however addled, are our friends, our inferiors are our prey, and sincethe policeman had discovered Mary publicly washing out an alien hallhis respect for her had withered and dropped to death almost in aninstant; whence it appears that there is really only one grave anddebasing vice in the world, and that is poverty. 

In many little ways the distinction and the difference was apparent toMary. The dignity of a gentleman and a man of the world was partlyshorn away: the gentleman portion, which comprised kindness andreticence, had vanished, the man of the world remained, typified by afamiliarity which assumed that this and that, understood but not to bementioned, shall be taken for granted: a spurious equalization perchedjauntily but insecurely on a non-committal, and that base flatterywhich is the only coin wherewith a thief can balance his depredations. For as they went pacing down a lonely road towards the Dodder thepoliceman diversified his entertaining lore by a succession ofcompliments which ravaged the heavens and the earth and the deep seafor a fitting symbology. Mary's eyes and the gay heavens were placedin juxtaposition and the heavens were censured, the vegetable, animaland mineral worlds were discomfited, the deep sea sustained a reproofand the by-products of nature and of art drooped into a nothingnesstoo vast even for laughter. Mary had not the slightest objection tohearing that all the other women in the world seemed cripples andgargoyles when viewed against her own transcendent splendor, and shewas prepared to love the person who said this innocently and happily. She would have agreed to be an angel or a queen to a man demandingpotentates and powers in his sweetheart, and would joyfully haveequalized matters by discovering the buried god in her lover andbelieving in it as sincerely as he permitted. --But this man was notsaying the truth. She could see him making the things up as he talked. There was eagerness in him, but no spontaneity. It was not eveneagerness, it was greediness: he wanted to eat her up and go away withher bones sticking out of his mouth as the horns of a deer protrudefrom the jaws of an anaconda, veritable evidence to it and his fellowsof a victory and an orgy to command respect and envy. But he wasfamiliar, he was complacent and--amazedly she discovered it--he wasbig. Her vocabulary could not furnish her with the qualifying word, or, rather, epithet for his bigness. Horrible was suggested andretained, but her instinct clamored that there was a fat, oozy wordsomewhere which would have brought comfort to her brains and her handsand feet. He did not keep his arms quiet, but tapped his remarks intoher blouse and her shoulder. Each time his hands touched her theyremained a trifle longer. They seemed to be great red spiders, theywould grip her all round and squeeze her clammily while his facespiked her to death with its moustache. .. . And he smiled also, hegiggled and cut capers; his language now was a perpetual witticism atwhich he laughed in jerks, and at which she laughed tightly like anobedient, quick echo: and then, suddenly, without a word, in a dazingflash, his arms were about her. There was nobody in sight at all, andhe was holding her like a great spider, and his bristly moustachedarted forward to spike her to death, and then, somehow, she was free, away from him, scudding down the road lightly and fearfully and veryswiftly. "Wait, wait, " he called, "wait, " but she did not wait. 

XXV

Mrs. Cafferty came in that evening for a chat with Mrs. Makebelieve. There were traces of worry on the lady's face, and she hushed thechildren who trooped in her wake with less of good humor than theywere accustomed to. Instead of threatening to smack them on the headas was usual she did smack them, and she walked surrounded bylamentations as by a sea. 

Things were not going at all well with her. There was a slackness inher husband's trade so that for days together he was idle, andalthough the big woman amended her expenditure in every direction shecould not by any means adjust eight robust appetites to a shrunkenincome. She explained her position to Mrs. Makebelieve:--Childrenwould not, they could not, consent to go on shorter rations than theyhad been accustomed to, and it seemed to her that daily, almosthourly, their appetites grew larger and more terrible. She showed herright hand whereon the mere usage of a bread-knife had scored a ridgewhich was now a permanent disfigurement. 

"God bless me, " she shouted angrily, "what right have I to ask thecreatures to go hungry? Am I to beat them when they cry? It's nottheir fault that they want food, and it's not my poor man's fault thatthey haven't any. He's ready to work at his trade if anybody wants himto do so, and if he can't get work and if the children are hungrywhose fault is it?"

Mrs. Cafferty held that there was something wrong somewhere, butwhether the blame was to be allocated to the weather, the employer, the government or the Deity, she did not know, nor did Mrs. Makebelieve know; but they were agreed that there was an errorsomewhere, a lack of adjustment with which they had nothing to do, butthe effects whereof were grievously visible in their privations. Meantime it had become necessary that Mrs. Cafferty should adjustherself to a changing environment. A rise or fall in wages isautomatically followed by a similar enlargement or shrinkage of one'snecessities, and the consequent difference is registered at all pointsof one's life-contact. The physical and mental activities of awell-to-do person can reach out to a horizon, while those of very poorpeople are limited to their immediate, stagnant atmosphere, and so thelives of a vast portion of society are liable to a ceaseless change, aflux swinging from good to bad forever, an expansion and constrictionagainst which they have no safeguards and not even any warning. Infree nature this problem is paralleled by the shrinking and expansionof the seasons; the summer with its wealth of food, the winterfollowing after with its famine, but many wild creatures are able tomake a thrifty provision against the bad time which they know comes ascertainly and periodically as the good time. Bees and squirrels andmany others fill their barns with the plentiful overplus of the summerfields, birds can migrate and find sunshine and sustenance elsewhere, and others again can store during their good season a life energy bymeans whereof they may sleep healthily through their hard times. Theseorganizations can be adjusted to their environments because thechanges of the latter are known and can be more or less accuratelypredicted from any point. But the human worker has no such regularity. His food period does not ebb and recur with the seasons. There is noperiodicity in their changes and, therefore, no possibility fordefensive or protective action. His physical structure uses andexcretes energy so rapidly that he cannot store it up and go to sleepon his savings, and his harvests are usually so lean and disconnectedthat the exercise of thrift is equally an impossibility and a mockery. The life, therefore, of such a person is composed of a constant seriesof adjustments and readjustments, and the stern ability wherewiththese changes are met and combated are more admirably ingenious thanthe much-praised virtues of ants and bees to which they are constantlydirected as to exemplars. 

Mrs. Cafferty had now less money than she had been used to, but shehad still the same rent to pay, the same number of children to feed, and the same personal dignity to support as in her better days, andher problem was to make up, by some means to which she was a stranger, the money which had drifted beyond the reach of her husband. Themethods by which she could do this were very much restricted. Childrenrequire an attention which occupies the entire of a mother's time, and, consequently, she was prevented from seeking abroad anymitigation of her hardships. The occupations which might be engaged inat home were closed to her by mere overwhelming competition. Thenumber of women who are prepared to make ten million shirts for apenny are already far in excess of the demand, and so, except by asevere under-cutting such as a contract to make twenty million shirtsfor a halfpenny, work of this description is very difficult to obtain. 

Under these circumstances nothing remained for Mrs. Cafferty but totake in a lodger. This is a form of co-operation much practiced amongthe poorer people. The margin of direct profit accruing from such aventure is very small, but this is compensated for by the extraspending power achieved. A number of people pooling their money inthis way can buy to greater advantage and in a cheaper market than ispossible to the solitary purchaser, and a moderate toll for wear andtear and usage, or, as it is usually put, for rent and attendance, gives the small personal profit at which such services are reckoned. 

Through the good offices of a neighboring shopkeeper Mrs. Caffertyhad secured a lodger, and, with the courage which is never separatefrom despair, she had rented a small room beside her own. This room, by an amazing economy of construction, contained a fireplace and awindow: it was about one square inch in diameter, and was undoubtedlya fine room. The lodger was to enter into possession on the followingday, and Mrs. Cafferty said he was a very nice young man indeed anddid not drink. 

XXVI

Mrs. Cafferty's lodger duly arrived. He was young and as thin as alath, and he moved with fury. He was seldom in the place at all: hefled into the house for his food, and, having eaten it, he fled awayfrom the house again, and did not reappear until it was time to go tobed. What he did with himself in the interval Mrs. Cafferty did notknow, but she was prepared to wager her soul, the value of which shebelieved was high, on the fact that he was a good young man who nevergave the slightest trouble, saving that his bedclothes were alwayslying on the floor in the morning, that there was candle grease on onecorner of his pillow, and that he cleaned his boots on a chair. Butthese were things which one expected a young man to do, and theomission of them might have caused one to look curiously at thecreature and to doubt his masculinity. 

Mrs. Makebelieve replied that habits of order and neatness were rarelyto be found in young people of either sex; more especially were theseabsent in boys who are released in early youth by their mothers fromall purely domestic employments. A great many people believed, and shebelieved herself, that it was not desirable a man or boy shouldconform too rigidly to household rules. She had observed that thecomfort of a home was lost to many men if they were expected to taketheir boots off when they came into the house or to hang their hats upin a special place. The women of a household, being so constantlyindoors, find it easy and businesslike to obey the small rules whichcomprise household legislation, but as the entire policy of a housewas to make it habitable and comfortable for its men folk all domesticordinances might be strained to the uttermost until the compromisewas found to mollify even exceptional idiosyncrasies. A man, she held, bowed to quite sufficient discipline during his working hours, and hishome should be a place free from every vexatious restraint and whereinhe might enjoy as wide a liberty as was good for him. 

These ideas were applauded by Mrs. Cafferty, and she supplemented themby a recital of how she managed her own husband, and of the ridiculousease whereby any man may be governed; for she had observed that menwere very susceptible to control if only the control was not tooapparent. If a man did a thing twice the doing of that thing became ahabit and a passion, any interference with which provoked him to anunreasoning bull-like wrath wherein both wives and crockery wereequally shattered; and, therefore, a woman had only to observe thepersonal habits of her beloved and fashion her restrictions accordingto that standard. This meant that men made the laws and womenadministered them--a wise allocation of prerogatives, for sheconceived that the executive female function was every whit asimportant as the creative faculty which brought these laws into being. She was quite prepared to leave the creative powers in male hands ifthey would equally abstain from interference with the subsequentworking details, for she was of opinion that in the pursuit of comfort(not entirely to their credit was it said) men were far more anxiouslyconcerned than were women, and they flew to their bourne with aninstinct for short cuts wherewith women were totally unacquainted. 

But in the young man who had come to lodge with her Mrs. Caffertydiscerned a being in whom virtue had concentrated to a degree thatalmost amounted to a congestion. He had instantly played with thechildren on their being presented to him: this was the sign of a goodnature. Before he was acquainted with her ten minutes he had madefour jokes: this was the sign of a pleasant nature; and he sang loudlyand unceasingly when he awoke in the morning, which was the unfailingindex to a happy nature. Moreover, he ate the meals provided for himwithout any of that particular, tedious examination which is soinsulting, and had complimented Mrs. Cafferty on an ability to put ataste on food which she was pleased to obtain recognition of. 

Both Mary and her mother remarked on these details with an admirationwhich was as much as either politeness or friendship could expect. Mrs. Makebelieve's solitary method of life had removed her sodistantly from youth that information about a young man was almosttonic to her. She had never wished for a second husband, but had oftenfancied that a son would have been a wonderful joy to her. Sheconsidered that a house which had no young man growing up in it wasnot a house at all, and she believed that a boy would love hismother, if not more than a daughter could, at least with a differencewhich would be strangely sweet--a rash, impulsive, unquiet love: alove which would continually prove her love to the breaking point; alove that demanded, and demanded with careless assurance, thataccepted her goodness as unquestioningly as she accepted the fertilityof the earth, and used her knowing blindly and flatteringly howinexhaustively rich her depths were. .. . She could have wept for this:it was priceless beyond kingdoms: the smile on a boy's face lifted herto an exaltation. Her girl was inexpressibly sweet, surely an islandin her wide heart, but a little boy . .. Her breasts could have filledwith milk for him, him she could have nourished in the rocks and indesert places: he would have been life to her and adventure, a barrieragainst old age, an incantation against sorrow, a fragrance and agrief and a defiance. .. . 

It was quite plain that Mrs. Cafferty was satisfied with this additionto her household, but the profit which she had expected to accrue fromhis presence was not the liberal one she had in mind when making thepreliminary arrangements. For it appeared that the young man had anappetite of which Mrs. Cafferty spoke with the respect proper tosomething colossal and awesome. A half-loaf did not more than breakthe back of a hunger which could wriggle disastrously over anotherhalf-loaf: so that, instead of being relieved by his advent, she wasconfronted by a more immediate and desolating bankruptcy than thatfrom which she had attempted to escape. Exactly how to deal with thissituation she did not know, and it was really in order to discuss herpeculiar case that she had visited Mrs. Makebelieve. She could, ofcourse, have approached the young man and demanded from him anincrease of money that would still be equitable to both parties, butshe confessed a repugnance to this course. She did not like toupbraid or trouble any one on account of an appetite which was sonoteworthy. She disliked, in any event, to raise a question aboutfood: her instinct for hospitality was outraged at the thought, and asshe was herself the victim, or the owner, of an appetite which hadoften placed a strain on her revenues, a fellow-feeling operated stillfurther in mitigation of his disqualification. 

Mrs. Makebelieve's advice was that she should stifle the first fierceand indiscriminate cravings of the young man's hunger by a liberalallowance of stirabout, which was a cheap, wholesome and verysatisfying food, and in that way his destruction of more costlyvictuals would be kept within reasonable limits. Appetite, she held, was largely a matter of youth, and as a boy who was scarcely donegrowing had no way of modifying his passion for nourishment, it wouldbe a lapse from decency to insult him on so legitimate a failing. 

Mrs. Cafferty thought that this might be done, and thanked her friendfor the counsel; but Mary, listening to these political matters, conceived Mrs. Cafferty as a person who had no longer any claim tohonor, and she pitied the young man whose appetite was thus publiclycanvassed, and who might at any moment be turned out of house and homeon account of a hunger against which he had no safeguard and no remedy. 

XXVII

It was not long until Mary and Mrs. Cafferty's lodger met. As he camein by the hall door one day Mary was carrying upstairs a large waterbucket, the portage of which two or three times a day is so heavy astrain on the dweller in tenements. The youth instantly seized thebucket and, despite her protestations and appeals, he carried itupstairs. He walked a few steps in advance of Mary, whistlingcheerfully as he went, so she was able to get a good view of him. Hewas so thin that he nearly made her laugh, but he carried the bucket, the weight of which she had often bowed under, with an easeastonishing in so slight a man, and there was a spring in his walkwhich was pleasant to see. He laid the bucket down outside her room, and requested her urgently to knock at his door whenever she requiredmore water fetched, because he would be only too delighted to do itfor her, and it was not the slightest trouble in the world. While hespoke he was stealing glances at her face and Mary was stealingglances at his face, and when they caught one another doing this atthe same moment they both looked hurriedly away, and the young mandeparted to his own place. 

But Mary was very angry with this young man. She had gone downstairsin her house attire, which was not resplendent, and she objected tobeing discovered by any youth in raiment not suitable to such anoccasion. She could not visualize herself speaking to a man unless shewas adorned as for a festivity. The gentlemen and ladies of whom hermother sometimes spoke, and of whom she had often dreamt, were nevermean in their habiliments. The gentlemen frequently had green silkenjackets with a foam of lace at the wrists and a cascade of the samerich material brawling upon their breasts, and the ladies wereattired in a magnificent scarcity of clothing, the fundamentalprinciple whereof, although she was quite assured of itsrighteousness, she did not yet understand. 

Indeed, at this period Mary's interest in dress far transcended anyinterest she had ever known before. She knew intimately the windowcontents of every costumier's shop in Grafton and Wicklow and Dawsonstreets, and could follow with intelligent amazement the apparentlytrifling, but exceedingly important, differences of line or seam orflounce which ranked one garment as a creation and its neighbor as adress. She and her mother often discussed the gowns wherein thenative dignity of their souls might be adequately caparisoned. Mrs. Makebelieve, with a humility which had still a trace of anger, admitted that the period when she could have been expressed in colorhad expired, and she decided that a black silk dress, with a heavygold chain falling along the bosom, was as much as her soul was nowentitled to. She had an impatience, amounting to contempt, for thoseflorid flamboyant souls whose outer physical integument so grievouslymisrepresented them. She thought that after a certain time one shoulddress the body and not the soul, and, discovering an inseparabilitybetween the two, she held that the mean shrine must hold a verytrifling deity and that an ill-made or time-worn body should neverdress gloriously under pain of an accusation of hypocrisy orfoolishness. 

But for Mary she planned garments with a freedom and bravery whichastonished while it delighted her daughter. She combined twenty stylesinto one style of terrifying originality. She conceived dresses of acomplexity beyond the labor of any but a divinely inspired needle, andothers again whose simplicity was almost too tenuous for human speech. She discussed robes whose trailing and voluminous richness could withdifficulty be supported by ten strong attendants, and she had heard ofa dress the fabric whereof was of such gossamer and etherealinsubstancy that it might be packed into a walnut more convenientlythan an ordinary dress could be impressed into a portmanteau. Mary'sexclamations of delight and longing ranged from every possible dressto every impossible one, and then Mrs. Makebelieve reviewed all thedresses she had worn from the age of three years to the present day, including wedding and mourning dresses, those which were worn atpicnics and dances and for traveling, with an occasional divergencewhich comprehended the clothing of her friends and her enemies duringthe like period. She explained the basic principles of dress to herdaughter, showing that in this art, as in all else, order cannot bedispensed with. There were things a tall person might wear, but whicha short person might not, and the draperies which adorned a portlylady were but pitiable weeds when trailed by her attenuated sister. The effect of long thin lines in a fabric will make a short womanappear tall, while round, thick lines can reduce the altitude ofpeople whose height is a trouble to be combated. She illustrated theusage of large and small checks and plaids and all the mazyinterweaving of other cloths, and she elucidated the mystery of color, tone, half-tone, light and shade so interestingly that Mary couldscarcely hear enough of her lore. She was acquainted with the colorswhich a dark person may wear and those which are suitable to a fairperson, and the shades proper to be used by the wide class rangingbetween these extremes she knew also, with a special provision forred-haired and sandy folk and those who have no complexion at all. Certain laws which she formulated were cherished by her daughter asoracular utterances--that one should match one's eyes in the houseand one's hair in the street, was one; that one's hat and gloves andshoes were of vastly more importance than all the rest of one'sclothing, was another; that one's hair and stockings should tone asnearly as possible, was a third. Following these rules, she assuredher daughter, a woman could never be other than well dressed, and allof these things Mary learned by heart and asked her mother to tell hermore, which her mother was quite able and willing to do. 

XXVIII

When the sexual instinct is aroused men and dogs and frogs andbeetles, and such other creatures as are inside or outside of thiscatalogue, are very tenacious in the pursuit of their ambition. We canseldom get away from that which attracts or repels us. Love and hateare equally magnetic and compelling, and each, being supernormal, drags us willingly or woefully in their wake, until at last our blindpersistency is either routed or appeased and we advance our lauds orgnash our teeth as the occasion bids us. There is no tragedy morewoeful than the victory of hate, nor any attainment so hopelesslybarren as the sterility of that achievement; for hate is finality, andfinality is the greatest evil which can happen in a world of movement. Love is an inaugurator displaying his banners on captured peaks andpressing forever to a new and more gracious enterprise, but thevictories of hate are gained in a ditch from which there is no horizonvisible and whence there does not go even one limping courier. 

After Mary fled from the embrace of the great policeman he came tothink more closely of her than he had been used; but her image wasthroned now in anger: she came to him like a dull brightness wherefromdesolate thunder might roll at an instant. Indeed, she began to obsesshim so that not even the ministrations of his aunt nor the obeisancesof that pleasant girl, the name of whose boots was Fairybell, couldgive him any comfort or wean him from a contemplation which sprawledgloomily between him and his duties to the traffic. If he had notdiscovered the lowliness of her quality his course might have beensimple and straightforward: the issue, in such an event, would havenarrowed to every man's poser--whether he should marry this girl orthat girl? but the arithmetic whereby such matters are elucidatedwould at the last have eased his perplexity, and the path indicatedcould have been followed with the fullest freedom on his part andwithout any disaster to his self-love. If, whichever way hisinclination wavered, there was any pang of regret (and there was boundto be) such a feeling would be ultimately waived by his reason orretained as a memorial which had a gratifying savor. But the knowledgeof Mary's social inferiority complicated matters, for, although thisautomatically put her out of the question as his wife, her subsequentill-treatment of himself had injected a virus to his blood which wasone-half a passion for her body and one-half a frenzy for vengeance. He could have let her go easily enough if she had not first let himgo; for he read dismissal in her action and resented it as a trespasson his own just prerogative. --He had but to stretch out his hand andshe would have dropped to it as tamely as a kitten, whereas now sheeluded his hand, would, indeed, have nothing to do with it; and thiscould not be forgiven. He would gladly have beaten her intosubmission, for what right has a slip of a girl to withstand theadvances of a man and a policeman? That is a crooked spirit demandingto be straightened with a truncheon: but as we cannot decently, oreven peaceably, beat a girl until she is married to us he had torelinquish that dear idea. He would have dismissed her from his mindwith the contempt she deserved, but, alas! he could not: she clungthere like a burr not to be dislodged saving by possession or abeating--two shuddering alternatives--for she had become detestablydear to him. His senses and his self-esteem conspired to heave her toa pedestal where his eye strained upwards in bewilderment--that shewho was below him could be above him! This was astounding: she must bepulled from her eminence and stamped back to her native depths by hisown indignant hoofs; thence she might be gloriously lifted again witha calm, benignant, masculine hand shedding pardons and favors, andperhaps a mollifying unguent for her bruises. Bruises! a knee, anelbow--they were nothing; little damages which to kiss was to makewell again. Will not women cherish a bruise that it may be medicinedby male kisses? Nature and precedent have both sworn to it. .. . But shewas out of reach; his hand, high-flung as it might be, could not getto her. He went furiously to the Phoenix Park, to St. Stephen'sGreen, to outlying leafy spots and sheltered lanes, but she was innone of these places. He even prowled about the neighborhood of herhome and could not meet her. Once he had seen Mary as she came alongthe road, and he drew back into a doorway. A young man was marching byher side, a young man who gabbled without ceasing and to whom Marychattered again with an equal volubility. As they passed by Marycaught sight of him, and her face went flaming. She caught hercompanion's arm, and they hurried down the road at a great pace. .. . She had never chattered to him. Always he had done the talking, andshe had been an obedient grateful listener. Nor did he quarrel withher silence, but her reserve shocked him--it was a pretense, worse, alie, a masked and hooded falsehood. She had surrendered to himwillingly, and yet drew about her a protective armor of reservewherein she skulked immune to the arms which were lawfully victorious. Is there, then, no loot for a conqueror? We demand the keys of theCity Walls and unrestricted entry, or our torches shall blaze again. This chattering Mary was a girl whom he had never caught sight of atall. She had been hiding from him even in his presence. In everyaspect she was an anger. But she could talk to the fellow with her. .. A skinny whipper-snapper, whom the breath of a man could shredinto remote, eyeless vacuity. Was this man another insult? Did she noteven wait to bury her dead? Pah! she was not value for his thought. Agirl so lightly facile might be blown from here to there and she wouldscarcely notice the difference. Here and there were the same places toher, and him and him were the same person. A girl of that type comesto a bad end: he had seen it often, the type and the end, and neverseparate. Can one not prophesy from facts? He saw a slut in a slum, adrab hovering by a dark entry, and the vision cheered him mightily forone glowing minute and left him unoccupied for the next, into whichshe thronged with the flutter of wings and the sound of a greatmocking. 

His aunt tracked his brows back to the responsible duties of hisemployment and commiserated with him, and made a lamentation aboutmatters with which he never had been occupied, so that the last tagof his good manners departed from him, and he damned her unswervinglyinto consternation. That other pleasant girl, whose sweetness he hadnot so much tasted as sampled, had taken to brooding in his presence:she sometimes drooped an eye upon him like a question. .. . Let her lookout or maybe he'd blaze into her teeth: howl menace down her throatuntil she swooned. Some one should yield to him a visible and tangibleagony to balance his. Does law probe no deeper than the pillage of awatch? Can one filch our self-respect and escape free? Shall not oursouls also sue for damages against its aggressor? Some person richenough must pay for his lacerations or there was less justice inheaven than in the Police Courts; and it might be that girl's lot toexpiate the sins of Mary. It would be a pleasure, if a sour one, tomake somebody wriggle as he had, and somebody should wriggle; of thathe was blackly determined. 

XXIX

Indeed, Mrs. Cafferty's lodger and Mary had become quite intimate, andit was not through the machinations of either that this had happened. Ever since Mrs. Makebelieve had heard of that young man's appetite andthe miseries through which he had to follow it she had been deeplyconcerned on his behalf. She declined to believe that the boy ever gotsufficient to eat, and she enlarged to her daughter on the seriousnessof this privation to a young man. Disabilities, such as a young girlcould not comprehend, followed in the train of insufficientnourishment. Mrs. Cafferty was her friend, and was, moreover, a gooddecent woman against whom the tongue of rumor might wag in vain; butMrs. Cafferty was the mother of six children and her naturalkindliness dared not expand to their detriment. Furthermore, the factof her husband being out of work tended to still further circumscribethe limits of her generosity. She divined a lean pot in the Caffertyhousehold, and she saw the young man getting only as much food as Mrs. Cafferty dared to give him, so that the pangs of his hunger almostgnawed at her own vitals. Under these circumstances she had sought foran opportunity to become better acquainted with him, and had veryeasily succeeded; so when Mary found him seated on their bed andeating violently of their half-loaf if she was astonished at first shewas also very glad. Her mother watched the demolition of their foodwith a calm happiness, for, although the amount she could contributewas small, every little helped, and not alone were his wants assisted, but her friend, Mrs. Cafferty, and her children were also aided bythis dulling of an appetite which might have endangered theirhousehold peace. 

The young man repaid their hospitality by an easy generosity of speechcovering affairs which neither Mrs. Makebelieve nor her daughter hadmany opportunities for studying. He spoke of those very interestingmatters with which a young man is concerned, and his speculations onvarious subjects, while often quite ignorant, were sufficiently vividto be interesting and were wrong in a boyish fashion which was notunpleasant. He was very argumentative, but was still open to reason;therefore, Mrs. Makebelieve had opportunities for discussion whichwere seldom granted to her. Insensibly she adopted the position ofguide, philosopher and friend to him, and Mary also found newinterests in speech, for, although the young man thought verydifferently from her, he did think upon her own plane, and the thingswhich secretly engrossed him were also the things wherewith she wasdeeply preoccupied. A community of ignorances may be as binding as acommunity of interests. We have a dull suspicion of that him or herwho knows more than we do, but the person who is prepared to go outadventuring with us with surmise only for a chart and enjoyment for aguide may use our hand as his own and our pockets as his treasury. 

As the young man had no more shyness than a cat it soon fell out thathe and Mary took their evening walks together. He was a clerk in alarge retail establishment, and had many things to tell Mary whichwere of great interest to both of them. For in his place of businesshe had both friends and enemies of whom he was able to speak with thefluency which was their due. Mary knew, for instance, that the chiefwas bald but decent (she could not believe that the connection wasnatural), and that the second in command had neither virtues norwhiskers. (She saw him as a codfish with a malignant eye. ) Heepitomized the vices which belonged in detail to the world, but werepeculiar to himself in bulk. (He must be hairy in that event. )Language, even the young man's, could not describe him adequately. (Heate boys for breakfast and girls for tea. ) With this person the youngman was in eternal conflict (a bear with little ears and big teeth);not open conflict, for that would have meant instant dismissal (nothairy at all--a long slimy eel with a lot of sense), but a veiledunremitting warfare which occupied all their spare attention. Theyoung man knew for an actual fact that some day he would be compelledto hit that chap, and it would be a sorry day for the fellow, becausehis ability to hit was startling. He told Mary of the evil resultswhich had followed some of his blows, and Mary's incredulity was onlyheightened by a display of the young man's muscles. She extolled thesebecause she thought it was her duty to do so, but preserved somedoubts of their unique destructiveness. Once she asked him could hefight a policeman, and he assured her that policemen are not able tofight at all singly, but only in squads, when their warfare is callousand ugly and conducted mainly with their boots; so that decent peoplehave no respect for their fighting qualities or their privatecharacters. He assured her that not only could he fight a policeman, but he could also tyrannize over the seed, breed and generation ofsuch a one, and, moreover, he could accomplish this without realexertion. Against all policemen and soldiers the young man professedan eager hostility, and with these bad people he included landlordsand many employers of labor. His denunciation of these folk might betraced back to the belief that none of them treated one fairly. Apoliceman, he averred, would arrest a man for next door to nothing, and any resistance offered to their spleen rendered the unfortunateprisoner liable to be man-handled in his cell until their outrageddignity was appeased. The three capital crimes upon which a man isliable to arrest is for being drunk, or disorderly, or for refusing tofight, and to these perils a young man is peculiarly susceptible andis, to that extent, interested in the Force, and critical of theirbehavior. The sight of a soldier annoyed him, for he saw a conqueror, trampling vaingloriously through the capital of his country, and theinability of his land to eject the braggart astonished and mortifiedhim. Landlords had no bowels of compassion. There was no kindliness ofheart among them, nor any wish to assist those whose whole existencewas engaged on their behalf. He saw them as lazy unproductive gluttonswho cried forever "Give, give, " and who gave nothing in return but anincreased insolent tyranny. Many employers came into the same blackcategory. They were people who had disowned all duty to humanity, andwho saw in themselves the beginning and the end of all things. Theygratified their acquisitiveness not in order that they might becomebenefactors of their kind (the only righteous freedom of which weknow) but merely to indulge a petty exercise of power and to attainthat approval which is granted to wealth and the giving of which isthe great foolishness of mankind. These people used their helpers andthrew them away, they exploited and bought and sold their fellow-menwhile their arrogant self-assurance and the monstrous power which theyhad gathered for their security shocked him like a thing unbelievablein spite of its reality. That such things could be fretted him intoclamor. He wanted to point them out to all people. He saw hisneighbors' ears clogged, and he was prepared to die howling if only hecould pierce those encrusted auditories. That what was so simple tohim should not be understood by everybody! He could see plainly andothers could not, although their eyes looked straightly forward andveritably rolled with intent and consciousness! Did their eyes andears and brains act differently to his, or was he a singular monstercursed from his birth with madness? At times he was prepared to lethumanity and Ireland go to the devil their own way, he being wellassured that without him they were bound quickly for deep perdition. Of Ireland he sometimes spoke with a fervor of passion which would beoutrageous if addressed to a woman. Surely he saw her as a woman, queenly and distressed and very proud. He was physically anguished forher, and the man who loved her was the very brother of his bones. There were some words the effect of which were almost hypnotic onhim--The Isle of the Blest, The Little Dark Rose, The Poor Old Womanand Caitlin the Daughter of Holohan. The mere repetition of thesephrases lifted him to an ecstasy; they had hidden, magical meaningswhich pricked deeply to his heartstrings and thrilled him to atempest of pity and love. He yearned to do deeds of valor, violent, grandiose feats which would redound to her credit and make the name ofIrishmen synonymous with either greatness or singularity: for, as yet, the distinction between these words was no more clear to him than itis to any other young man who reads violence as heroism andeccentricity as genius. Of England he spoke with something likestupefaction--as a child cowering in a dark wood tells of the ogre whohas slain his father and carried his mother away to a drear captivityin his castle built of bones--so he spoke of England. He saw anEnglish-man stalking hideously forward with a princess tucked undereach arm, while their brothers and their knights were netted inenchantment and slept heedless of the wrongs done to their ladies andof the defacement of their shields. .. . "Alas, alas and alas, for theonce-proud people of Banba!"

XXX

Mrs. Makebelieve was astonished when the policeman knocked at herdoor. A knock at her door was a rare sound, for many years had gone bysince any one had come to visit her. Of late Mrs. Cafferty often cameto talk to her, but she never knocked: she usually shouted, "Can Icome in?" and then she came in. But this was a ceremonious knock whichstartled her, and the spectacle of the great man bending through thedoorway almost stopped her breath. Mary also was so shocked intoterror that she stood still, forgetful of all good manners, and staredat the visitor open-eyed. She knew and did not know what he had comefor; but that, in some way, his appearance related to her she wasinstantly assured, although she could not even dimly guess at acloser explanation of his visit. His eyes stayed on her for an instantand then passed to her mother, and, following her rather tremulousinvitation, he came into the room. There was no chair to sit on, soMrs. Makebelieve requested him to sit down on the bed, which he did. She fancied he had come on some errand from Mrs. O'Connor, and wasinclined to be angry at a visit which she construed as an intrusion, so, when he was seated, she waited to hear what he might have to say. 

Even to her it was evident that the big man was perplexed and abashed;his hat was in his way and so were his hands, and when he spoke hisvoice was so husky as to be distressful. On Mary, who had withdrawn tothe very end of the room, this discomfort of speech had a peculiareffect: the unsteady voice touched her breast to a kindred fluttering, and her throat grew parched and so irritated that a violent fit ofcoughing could not be restrained, and this, with the nervousness andalarm which his appearance had thronged upon her, drove her to a veryfever of distress. But she could not take her eyes away from him, andshe wondered and was afraid of what he might say. She knew there werea great many things he might discuss which she would be loath to hearin her mother's presence, and which her mother would not be gratifiedto hear either. 

He spoke for a few moments about the weather, and Mrs. Makebelievehearkened to his remarks with a perplexity which she made no effort toconceal. She was quite certain he had not called to speak about theweather, and she was prepared to tell him so if a suitable opportunityshould occur. She was also satisfied that he had not come on a formal, friendly visit--the memory of her last interview with him forbade sucha conjecture, for on that occasion politeness had been deposed fromher throne and acrimony had reigned in her stead. If his aunt haddesired him to undertake an embassy to her he would surely havedelivered his message without preamble, and would not have been thrownby so trifling a duty into the state of agitation in which he was. Itwas obvious, therefore, that he had not come with a message relatingto her work. Something of fear touched Mrs. Makebelieve as she lookedat him, and her voice had an uneasy note when she requested to knowwhat she could do for him. 

The policeman suddenly, with the gesture of one throwing away anchors, plunged into the heart of his matter, and as he spoke the look on Mrs. Makebelieve's face changed quickly from bewilderment to curiosity anddulled again to a blank amazement. After the first few sentences shehalf turned to Mary, but an obscure shame prevented her from searchingout her daughter's eyes. It was borne quickly and painfully to herthat Mary had not treated her fairly: there was a secret here withwhich a mother ought to have been trusted, and one which she could notbelieve Mary would have withheld from her; and so, gauging her child'sfeelings by her own, she steadfastly refused to look at her lest theshocked surprise in her eyes might lacerate the girl she loved, andwho she knew must at the instant be in a sufficient agony----Undoubtedly the man was suggesting that he wanted to marry herdaughter, and the unexpectedness of such a proposal left her mentallygaping; but that there must have been some preliminaries of meetingand courtship became obvious to her. Mary also listened to his remarksin a stupor. Was there no possibility at all of getting away from theman? A tenacity such as this seemed to her malignant. She had thefeeling of one being pursued by some relentless and unscrupuloushunter. She heard him speaking through a cloud, and the only thingsreally clear to her were the thoughts which she knew her mother mustbe thinking. She was frightened and ashamed, and the sullenness whichis the refuge of most young people descended upon her like a darkness. Her face grew heavy and vacant, and she stared in front of her in theattitude of one who had nothing to do with what was passing. She didnot believe altogether that he was in earnest: her immediatediscomfort showed him as one who was merely seeking to get her intotrouble with her mother in order to gratify an impotent rage. Twice orthree times she flamed suddenly, went tiptoe to run from the room. Aflash, and she would be gone from the place, down the stairs, into thestreets and away anywhere, and she tingled with the very speed of hervision; but she knew that one word from her mother would halt her likea barrier, and she hated the thought that he should be a witness toher obedience. 

While he was speaking he did not look at Mary. He told Mrs. Makebelieve that he loved her daughter very much, and he begged herpermission and favor for his suit. He gave her to understand that heand Mary had many opportunities of becoming acquainted, and were atone in this desire for matrimony---- To Mrs. Makebelieve's mind thererecurred a conversation which she had once held with her daughter, when Mary was curious to know if a policeman was a desirable personfor a girl to marry? She saw this question now, not as being promptedby a laudable, an almost scientific curiosity, but as the interested, sly speculation of a schemer hideously accomplished in deceit. Marycould see that memory flitting back through her mother's brain, and ittormented her. Nor was her mother at ease--there was no chair to situpon, she had to stand and listen to all this while he spoke, more orless at his ease, from the bed. If she also had been sitting down shemight have been mistress of her thoughts and able to deal naturallywith the situation; but an easy pose is difficult when standing: herhands would fold in front of her and the schoolgirl attitude annoyedand restrained her. Also, the man appeared to be in earnest in what hesaid. His words at the least and the intention which drove them seemedhonorable. She could not give rein to her feelings without lapsing toa barbarity which she might not justify to herself even in anger andmight, indeed, blush to remember. Perhaps his chief disqualificationconsisted in a relationship to Mrs. O'Connor for which he could notjustly be held to blame, and for which she sincerely pitied him. Butthis certainly was a disqualification never to be redeemed. He mightleave his work, or his religion, or his country, but he could neverquit his aunt, because he carried her with him under his skin; he washer with additions, and at times Mrs. Makebelieve could see Mrs. O'Connor looking cautiously at her through the policeman's eyes; aturn of his forehead and she was there like a thin wraith thatvanished and appeared again. The man was spoiled for her. He did notaltogether lack sense, and the fact that he wished to marry herdaughter showed that he was not so utterly beyond the reach ofredemption as she had fancied. 

Meanwhile, he had finished his statement as regarded the affectionwhich he bore to her daughter and the suitability of theirtemperaments, and had hurled himself into an explanation of hisworldly affairs, comprising his salary as a policeman, the possibilityof promotion and the increased emoluments which would follow it, andthe certain pension which would sustain his age. There was, furthermore, his parents, from whose decease he would reap certainmonetary increments, and the deaths of other relatives from which anadditional enlargement of his revenues might reasonably be expected. Indeed, he had not desired to speak of these matters at all, but thestony demeanor of Mrs. Makebelieve and the sullen aloofness of herdaughter forced him, however reluctantly, to draw even ignoble weaponsfrom his armory. He had not conceived they would be so obdurate: hehad, in fact, imagined that the elder woman must be flattered by hisoffer to marry her daughter, and when no evidence to support this wasforthcoming he was driven to appeal to the cupidity which he believedoccupies the heart of every middle-aged, hard-worked woman. But thesestatements also were received with a dreadful composure. He could havesmashed Mrs. Makebelieve where she stood. Now and again his bodystrained to a wild, physical outburst, a passionate, red fury thatwould have terrified these women to their knees, while he roared theirscreams into thin whimpers as a man should. He did not even dare tostop speaking, and his efforts at an easy, good-humored, half-carelesspresentation of his case was bitterly painful to him as it was to hisauditors. The fact that they were both standing up unnerved himalso--the pleasant equality which should have formed the atmosphere ofsuch an interview was destroyed from the first moment, and, havingonce sat down, he did not like to stand up again. He felt glued to thebed on which he sat, and he felt also that if he stood up the tensionin the room would so relax that Mrs. Makebelieve would at once breakout into speech sarcastic and final, or her daughter might screamreproaches and disclaimers of an equal finality. At her he did notdare to look, but the corner of his eye could see her shape stiffenedagainst the fireplace, an attitude so different from the pliablecontours to which he was accustomed in her as almost to be repellant. He would have thanked God to find himself outside the room, but how toget out of it he did not know: his self-esteem forbade anything like aretreat without honor, his nervousness did not permit him to move atall, the anger which prickled the surface of his body and mind washeld in check only by an instinct of fear as to what he might do if hemoved, and so, with dreadful jocularity, he commenced to speak ofhimself, his personal character, his sobriety and steadiness--of allthose safe negations on which many women place reliance he spoke, andalso of certain small vices which he magnified merely for the sake oftalking, such as smoking, an odd glass of porter and the shillingwhich, now and again, he had ventured upon a race horse. 

Mary listened to him for a while with angry intentness. The fact thatshe was the subject of his extraordinary discourse quickened at thefirst all her apprehensions. Had the matter been less important shewould have been glad to look at herself in this strange position, andto savor, with as much detachment as was possible, the whole spirit ofthe adventure. But when she heard him, as she put it, "telling onher, " laying bare to her mother all the walks they had taken together, visits to restaurants and rambles through the streets and the parks, what he had said to her on this occasion and on that, and her remarkson such and such a matter, she could not visualize him save as amalignant and uncultivated person; and when he tacitly suggested thatshe was as eager for matrimony as he was, and so put upon her thehorrible onus of rejecting him before a second person, she closed hermind and her ears against him. She refused to listen, although herperceptions admitted the trend of his speech. His words droned heavilyand monotonously to her as through dull banks of fog. She made up hermind that if she were asked any questions by either of them she wouldnot reply, and that she would not look at either of them, and then shethought that she would snap and stamp her feet and say that she hatedhim, that he had looked down on her because she worked for his aunt, that he had meanly been ashamed of and cut her because she was poor, that he had been going with another girl all the time he was goingwith her and that he only pursued her in order to annoy her, that shedidn't love him, that she didn't even like him, that, in fact, shedisliked him heartily. She wished to say all these things in onewhirling outcry, but feared that before she had rightly begun she mightbecome abashed, or, worse, might burst into tears and lose all thedignity which she meant to preserve in his presence for the purpose ofshowing to him in the best light exactly what he was losing. 

But the big man had come to the end of his speech. He made a fewattempts to begin anew on the desirability of such a union for both ofthem, and the happiness it would give him if Mrs. Makebelieve wouldcome to live with them when they were married. He refused to let itappear that there was any doubt as to Mary's attitude in the matter, for up to the moment he came to their door he had not doubted herwillingness himself. Her late avoidance of him he had put down to merefeminine tactics which leads on by holding off. The unwilling personhe had been assured was himself--he stooped to her, and it was onlyafter a severe battle that he had been able to do it. The astonishmentand disapproval of his relatives and friends at such a step was veryevident to him, for to a man of his position and figure girls werecheap creatures, the best of them to be had for the mere asking. Therefore, the fact that this girl could be seriously rejecting hisoffer of marriage came upon him like red astonishment. He had no moreto say, however, and he blundered and fumbled into silence. 

For a moment or two the little room was so still that the quietnessseemed to hum and buzz like an eternity. Then, with a sigh, Mrs. Makebelieve spoke. 

"I don't know at all, " said she, "why you should speak to me aboutthis, for neither my daughter nor yourself have ever even hinted to mebefore that you were courting one another. Why Mary should keep such asecret from her own mother I don't know. Maybe I've been cruel andfrightened her, although I don't remember doing anything that shecould have against me of that sort: or, maybe, she didn't think I waswise enough to advise her about a particular thing like her marriage, for, God knows, old women are foolish enough in their notions, or elsethey wouldn't be slaving and grinding for the sake of their childrenthe way they do be doing year in and year out, every day in the week, and every hour of the day. It isn't any wonder at all that a childwould be a liar and a sleeveen and a trampler of the roads with thefirst man that nods to her when her mother is a foolish person thatshe can't trust. Of course, I wouldn't be looking for a gentleman likeyourself to mention the matter to me when I might be scrubbing outyour aunt's kitchen or her hall door maybe, and you sitting in theparlor with the company. Sure, I'm only an old charwoman, and whatdoes it matter at all what I'd be thinking, or whether I'd be agreeingor not to anything? Don't I get my wages for my work, and what moredoes anybody want in the world? As for me going to live with you whenyou are married--it was kind of you to ask me that; but it's not thesort of thing I'm likely to do, for if I didn't care for you as astranger I'm not going to like you any better as my daughter'shusband. You'll excuse me saying one thing, Sir, but while we aretalking we may as well be talking out, and it's this, that I never didlike you, and I never will like you, and I'd sooner see my daughtermarried to any one at all than to yourself. But, sure, I needn't betalking about it; isn't it Mary's business altogether, and she'll besettling it with you nicely I don't doubt. She's a practiced hand nowat arranging things, like you are yourself, and it will do me good tobe learning something from her. "

Mrs. Makebelieve took a cloth in her hand and walked over to thefireplace, which she commenced to polish. 

The big man looked at Mary. It was incumbent on him to say something. Twice he attempted to speak, and each time, on finding himself aboutto say something regarding the weather, he stopped. Mary did not lookat him; her eyes were fixed stubbornly on a part of the wall well awayfrom his neighborhood, and it seemed to him that she had made a vow toherself never to look at him again. But the utter silence of the roomwas unbearable. He knew that he ought to get up and go out, but hecould not bring himself to do so. His self-love, his very physicalstrength, rebelled against so tame a surrender. One thought hegathered in from swaying vacuity--that the timid little creature whomhe had patronized would not find the harsh courage to refuse himpoint-blank if he charged her straightly with the question, and so heagain assayed speech. 

"Your mother is angry with us, Mary, " said he, "and I suppose she hasgood right to be angry; but the reason I did not speak to her before, as I admit I should have if I had done the right thing, was that I hadvery few chances of meeting her, and never did meet her without someother person being there at the same time. I suppose the reason youdid not say anything was that you wanted to be quite sure of yourselfand of me too before you mentioned it. We have both done the wrongthing in not being open, but maybe your mother will forgive us whenshe knows we had no intention of hurting her, or of doing anythingbehind her back. Your mother seems to hate me: I don't know why, because she hardly knows me at all, and I've never done her any harmor said a word against her. Perhaps when she knows me as well as youdo she'll change her mind: but you know I love you better than any oneelse, and that I'd do anything I could to please you and be a goodhusband to you. What I want to ask you before your mother is, --willyou marry me?"

Mary made no reply. She did not look or give the slightest sign thatshe had heard. But now it was that she did not dare to look at him. The spectacle of this big man badgered by her and by her mother, pleading to her, and pleading, as he and she well knew, hopelessly, would have broken her heart if she looked at him. She had to admirethe good masculine fight he made of it. Even his tricks of word andtactic, which she instantly divined, moved her almost to tears; butshe feared terribly that if she met his gaze she might not be able toresist his huge helplessness, and that she might be compelled to dowhatever he begged of her even in despite of her own wishes. 

The interval which followed his question weighed heavily upon themall. It was only broken by Mrs. Makebelieve, who began to hum a songas she polished the fire grate. She meant to show her carelessdetachment from the whole matter, but in the face of Mary's silenceshe could not keep it up. After a few moments she moved around andsaid:--

"Why don't you answer the gentleman, Mary?"

Mary turned and looked at her, and the tears which she had resisted solong swam in her eyes: although she could keep her features composedshe had no further command over her tears. 

"I'll answer whatever you ask me, mother, " she whispered. 

"Then, tell the gentleman whether you will marry him or not. "

"I don't want to marry any one at all, " said Mary. 

"You are not asked to marry any one, darling, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, "but some one--this gentleman here whose name I don't happen to know. Do you know his name?"

"No, " said Mary. 

"My name. .. . " began the policeman. 

"It doesn't matter, Sir, " said Mrs. Makebelieve. "Do you want to marrythis gentleman, Mary?"

"No, " whispered Mary. 

"Are you in love with him?"

Mary turned completely away from him. 

"No, " she whispered again. 

"Do you think you ever will be in love with him?"

She felt as a rat might when hunted to a corner. But the end must bevery near; this could not last forever because nothing can. Her lipswere parched, her eyes were burning. She wanted to lie down and goasleep and waken again laughing to say--"it was a dream. "

Her reply was almost inaudible. "No, " she said. 

"You are quite sure? It is always better to be quite sure. "

She did not answer any more, but the faint droop of her head gave thereply her mother needed. 

"You see, Sir, " said Mrs. Makebelieve, "that you were mistaken in youropinion. My daughter is not old enough yet to be thinking of marriageand such like. Children do be thoughtless. I am sorry for all thetrouble she has given you, and"--a sudden compunction stirred her, forthe man was standing up now, and there was no trace of Mrs. O'Connorvisible in him: his face was as massive and harsh as a piece of wall. "Don't you be thinking too badly of us now, " said Mrs. Makebelievewith some agitation; "the child is too young altogether to be askingher to marry. Maybe in a year or two--I said things I know, but I wasvexed, and. .. . "

The big man nodded his head and marched out. 

Mary ran to her mother moaning like a sick person, but Mrs. Makebelieve did not look at her. She lay down on the bed and turnedher face to the wall, and she did not speak to Mary for a long time. 

XXXI

When the young man who lodged with Mrs. Cafferty came in on thefollowing day he presented a deplorable appearance. His clothes weretorn and his face had several large strips of sticking-plaster on it, but he seemed to be in a mood of extraordinary happinessnotwithstanding, and proclaimed that he had participated in the onereally great fight of his life-time, that he wasn't injured at all, and that he wouldn't have missed it for a pension. 

Mrs. Cafferty was wild with indignation, and marched him into Mrs. Makebelieve's room, where he had to again tell his story and have hisinjuries inspected and commiserated. Even Mr. Cafferty came into theroom on this occasion. He was a large, slow man dressed verycomfortably in a red beard--his beard was so red and so persistentthat it quite overshadowed the rest of his wrappings and did, indeed, seem to clothe him. As he stood the six children walked in and out ofhis legs, and stood on his feet in their proper turns without causinghim any apparent discomfort. During the young man's recital Mr. Cafferty every now and then solemnly and powerfully smote his lefthand with his right fist, and requested that the aggressor should beproduced to him. 

The young man said that as he was coming home the biggest man in theworld walked up to him. He had never set eyes on the man before in hislife, and thought at first he wanted to borrow a match or ask the wayto somewhere, or something like that, and, accordingly, he halted; butthe big man gripped him by the shoulder and said "You damned youngwhelp, " and then he laughed and hit him a tremendous blow with hisother hand. He twisted himself free at that, and said "What's thatfor?" and then the big man made another desperate clout at him. Afellow wasn't going to stand that kind of thing, so he let out at himwith his left and then jumped in with two short-arm jabs that musthave tickled the chap; that fellow didn't have it all his own wayanyhow. .. . The young man exhibited his knuckles, which were skinnedand bleeding, as evidence of some exchange; but, he averred, you mightas well be punching a sack of coal as that man's face. In anotherminute they both slipped and rolled over and over in the road, hittingand kicking as they sprawled: then a crowd of people ran forward andpulled them asunder. When they were separated he saw the big man lifthis fist, and the person who was holding him ducked suddenly and ranfor his life: the other folk got out of the way too, and the big manwalked over to where he stood and stared into his face. His jaw wasstuck out like the seat of a chair and his moustache was like abristle of barbed wire. The young man said to him, "What the hell'swrong with you to go bashing a man for nothing at all?" and all of asudden the big fellow turned and walked away. It was a grand fightaltogether, said the youth, but the other man was a mile and a halftoo big for him. 

As this story proceeded Mrs. Makebelieve looked once or twice at herdaughter. Mary's face had gone very pale, and she nodded back aconfirmation of her mother's conjecture; but it did not seem necessaryor wise to either of them that they should explain their thoughts. Theyoung man did not require either condolences or revenge. He was wellpleased at an opportunity to measure his hardihood against a worthyopponent. He had found that his courage exceeded his strength, as italways should, for how could we face the gods and demons of existenceif our puny arms were not backed up by our invincible eyes? and hedisplayed his contentment at the issue as one does a banner emblazonedwith merits. Mrs. Makebelieve understood also that the big man'saction was merely his energetic surrender, as of one who, instead oftendering his sword courteously to the victor, hurls it at him with amalediction; and that in assaulting their friend he was bidding themfarewell as heartily and impressively as he was able. So they fed theyoung man and extolled him, applauding to the shrill winding of histrumpet until he glowed again in the full satisfaction of heroism. 

He and Mary did not discontinue their evening walks. Of these Mrs. Makebelieve was fully cognizant, and, although she did not remark onthe fact, she had been observing the growth of their intimacy with acare which was one part approval and one part pain; for it was veryevident to her that her daughter was no longer a child to becontrolled and directed by authority. Her little girl was a big girl;she had grown up and was eager to undertake the business of life onher own behalf. But the period of Mrs. Makebelieve's motherhood haddrawn to a close, and her arms were empty. She was too used now tobeing a mother to relinquish easily the prerogatives of that status, and her discontent had this justification and assistance that it couldbe put into definite words, fronted and approved or rejected as reasonurged. By knowledge and thought we will look through a stone wall ifwe look long enough, for we see less through eyes than through Time. Time is the clarifying perspective whereby myopia of any kind isadjusted, and a thought emerges in its field as visibly as a tree doesin nature's. Mrs. Makebelieve saw seventeen years' apprenticeship tomaternity canceled automatically without an explanation or a courtesy, and for a little time her world was in ruins, the ashes of existencepowdered her hair and her forehead. Then she discovered that thedebris was valuable in known currency; the dust was golden: her loveremained to her undisturbed and unlikely to be disturbed by whateverevent. And she discovered further that parentage is neither a game nora privilege but a duty; it is, astounding thought, the care of theyoung until the young can take care of itself. It was for this freedomonly that her elaborate care had been necessary; her bud had blossomedand she could add no more to its bloom or fragrance. Nothing hadhappened that was not natural, and whoso opposes his brow against thatimperious urgency is thereby renouncing his kind and claiming akinship with the wild boar and the goat, which they, too, mayrepudiate with leaden foreheads. There remained also the common humanequality, not alone of blood, but of sex also, which might be fosteredand grow to an intimacy more dear and enduring, more lovely and lovingthan the necessarily one-sided devotions of parentage. Her duties inthat relationship having been performed, it was her daughter's turn totake up her's and prove her rearing by repaying to her mother theconscious love which intelligence and a good heart dictates. Thisgiven, Mrs. Makebelieve could smile happily again, for her arms wouldbe empty only for a little time. The continuity of nature does notfail saving for extraordinary instances. She sees to it that a breastand an arm shall not very long be unoccupied, and, consequently, asMrs. Makebelieve sat contemplating that futurity which is nothing morethan a prolongation of experience she could smile contentedly, for allwas very well. 

XXXII

If the unexpected did not often happen life would be a logical, scientific progression which might become dispirited and repudiate itsgoal for very boredom, but nature has cunningly diversified themethods whereby she coaxes or coerces us to prosecute, not our own, but her own adventure. Beyond every corner there may be a tavern or achurch wherein both the saint and the sinner may be entrapped andremolded. Beyond the skyline you may find a dynamite cartridge, adrunken tinker, a mad dog, or a shilling which some person hasdropped; and any one of these unexpectednesses may be potent to urgethe traveler down a side street and put a crook in the straight linewhich had been his life, and to which he had become miserablyreconciled. The element of surprise being, accordingly, one of thecommonest things in the world we ought not to be hypercritical in ourreview of singularities, or say--"These things do not happen, "--becauseit is indisputable that they do happen. That combination whichcomprises a dark night, a highwayman armed and hatted to the teeth, and myself, may be a purely fortuitous one, but will such a criticismbring any comfort to the highwayman? And the concourse of threebenevolent millionaires with the person to whom poverty can do nomore is so pleasant and possible that I marvel it does not occur morefrequently. I am prepared to believe on the very lightest assurancethat these things do happen, but are hushed up for reasons whichwould be cogent enough if they were available. 

Mrs. Makebelieve opened the letter which the evening's post hadbrought to her. She had pondered well before opening it, and haddiscussed with her daughter all the possible people who could havewritten it. The envelope was long and narrow, it was addressed in aswift emphatic hand, the tail of the letter M enjoying a careerdistinguished beyond any of its fellows by length and beauty. Theenvelope, moreover, was sealed by a brilliant red lion with jaggedwhiskers and a simper, who threatened the person daring to open amissive not addressed to him with the vengeance of a battle-axe whichwas balanced lightly but truculently on his right claw. 

This envelope contained several documents purporting to be copies ofextraordinary originals, and amongst them a letter which was read byMrs. Makebelieve more than ten thousand times or ever she went to bedthat night. It related that more than two years previously one PatrickJoseph Brady had departed this life, and that his will, dated from amultitudinous address in New York, devised and bequeathed to hisdearly beloved sister Mary Eileen Makebelieve, otherwise Brady, thefollowing shares and securities for shares, to wit:--and thethereinafter mentioned houses and messuages, lands, tenements, hereditaments and premises, that was to say:--and all householdfurniture, books, pictures, prints, plate, linen, glass and objects ofvertu, carriages, wines, liquors and all consumable stores and effectswhatsoever then in the house so and so, and all money then in the Bankand thereafter to accrue due upon the thereinbefore mentioned stocks, funds, shares and securities. .. . Mrs. Makebelieve wept and besoughtGod not to make a fool of a woman who was not only poor but old. Theletter requested her to call on the following day, or at her earliestconvenience, to "the above address, " and desired that she should bringwith her such letters or other documents as would establish herrelationship to the deceased and assist in extracting the necessaryGrant of Probate to the said Will, and it was subscribed by Messrs. Platitude & Glambe, Solicitors, Commissioners for Oaths and Protectorsof the Poor. 

To the Chambers of these gentlemen Mrs. Makebelieve and Mary repairedon the following day, and, having produced the letters and otherdocuments for inspection, the philanthropists, Platitude and Glambe, professed themselves to be entirely satisfied as to their bona fides, and exhibited an eagerness to be of immediate service to the ladies inwhatever capacity might be conceived. Mrs. Makebelieve instantlyinvoked the Pragmatic Sanction; she put the entire matter to thetouchstone of absolute verity by demanding an advance of fifty pounds. Her mind reeled as she said the astounding amount, but her voice didnot. A check was signed and a clerk dispatched, who returned witheight five-pound notes and ten sovereigns of massy gold. Mrs. Makebelieve secreted these, and went home marveling to find that shewas yet alive. No trams ran over her. The motor cars pursued her, andwere evaded. She put her hope in God, and explained so breathlessly tothe furious street. One cyclist who took corners on trust she cursedby the Ineffable Name, but instantly withdrew the malediction forluck, and addressed his dwindling back with an eye of misery and avoice of benediction. For a little time neither she nor her daughterspoke of the change in their fortunes saving in terms of allusion;they feared that, notwithstanding their trust, God might hear andshatter them with His rolling laughter. They went out again that dayfurtively and feverishly and bought. .. . 

But on the following morning Mrs. Makebelieve returned again to herlabor. She intended finishing her week's work with Mrs. O'Connor (itmight not last for a week). She wished to observe that lady with theexact particularity, the singleness of eye, the true, candid, criticalscrutiny which had hitherto been impossible to her. It was, she saidto Mary, just possible that Mrs. O'Connor might make some remarksabout soap. It was possible that the lady might advance theories as tohow this or that particular kind of labor ought to be conducted. .. . Mrs. Makebelieve's black eye shone upon her child with a calm peace, abenevolent happiness rare indeed to human regard. 

In the evening of that day Mary and the young man who lodged withtheir neighbor went out for the walk which had become customary withthem. The young man had been fed with an amplitude which he had neverknown before, so that not even the remotest slim thread, shred, hint, echo or memory of hunger remained with him: he tried but could notmake a dint in himself anywhere, and, consequently, he was as sad asonly a well-fed person can be. Now that his hunger was gone he deemedthat all else was gone also. His hunger, his sweetheart, his hopes, his good looks (for his injuries had matured to the ripe purple ofthe perfect bruise) all were gone, gone, gone. He told it to Mary, butshe did not listen to him; to the rolling sky he announced it and itpaid no heed. He walked beside Mary at last in silence, listening toher plans and caprices, the things she would do and buy, the people towhom gifts should be made and the species of gift uniquely suitable tothis person and to that person, the people to whom money might begiven and the amounts, and the methods whereby such largesse could bedistributed. Hats were mentioned and dresses, and the new housesomewhere--a space-embracing-somewhere, beyond surmise, beyondgeography. They walked onwards for a long time, so long that at last afamiliar feeling stole upon the youth. The word "food" seemed suddenlya topic worthy of the most spirited conversation. His spirits arose. He was no longer solid, space belonged to him also, it was in him andof him, and so there was a song in his heart. He was hungry and thefriend of man again. Now everything was possible. The girl? Was shenot by his side? The regeneration of Ireland and of Man? That could bedone also; a little leisure and everything that can be thought can bedone: even his good looks might be returned to him: he felt the stingand tightness of his bruises and was reassured, exultant. He was a manpredestined to bruises; they would be his meat and drink andhappiness, his refuge and sanctuary forever. Let us leave him, then, pacing volubly by the side of Mary, and exploring with a delicatefinger his half-closed eye, which, until it was closed entirely, wouldalways be half-closed by the decent buffet of misfortune. His ally andstay was hunger, and there is no better ally for any man: thatsatisfied and the game is up; for hunger is life, ambition, good-willand understanding, while fullness is all those negatives whichculminate in greediness, stupidity and decay; so his bruises troubledhim no further than as they affected the eyes of a lady wherein heprayed to be comely. 

Bruises, unless they are desperate indeed, will heal at the last forno other reason than that they must. The inexorable compulsion of allthings is towards health or destruction, life or death, and we hastenour joys or our woes to the logical extreme. It is urgent, therefore, that we be joyous if we wish to live. Our heads may be as solid as ispossible, but our hearts and our heels shall be light or we areruined. As to the golden mean--let us have nothing to do with thatthing at all; it may only be gilded, it is very likely made of tin ofa dull color and a lamentable sound, unworthy even of being stolen;and unless our treasures may be stolen they are of no use to us. It iscontrary to the laws of life to possess that which other people do notwant; therefore, your beer shall foam, your wife shall be pretty, andyour little truth shall have a plum in it--for this is so; that yourbeer can only taste of your company, you can only know your wife whensome one else does, and your little truth shall be savored or perish. Do you demand a big truth? Then, Oh Ambitious! you must turn asidefrom all your companions and sit very quietly, and if you sit longenough and quiet enough it may come to you; but this thing alone ofall things you cannot steal, nor can it be given to you by the CountyCouncil. It cannot be communicated, and yet you may get it. It isunspeakable but not unthinkable, and it is born as certainly andunaccountably as you were yourself, and is of just as little immediateconsequence. Long, long ago in the dim beginnings of the world therewas a careless and gay young man who said--"Let truth go to hell"--andit went there. It was his misfortune that he had to follow it; it isours that we are his descendants. An evil will either kill you or bekilled by you, and (the reflection is comforting) the odds are with usin every fight waged against humanity by the dark or elemental beings. But humanity is timid and lazy, a believer in golden means andsubterfuges and compromises, loath to address itself to any combatuntil its frontiers are virtually overrun and its cities and granariesand places of refuge are in jeopardy from those gloomy marauders. Inthat wide struggle which we call Progress, evil is always theaggressor and the vanquished, and it is right that this should be so, for without its onslaughts and depredations humanity might fall to afat slumber upon its corn sacks and die snoring: or, alternatively, lacking these valorous alarms and excursions it might becomeself-satisfied and formularized, and be crushed to death by the meredull density of virtue. Next to good the most valuable factor in lifeis evil. By the interaction of these all things are possible, and, therefore (or for any other reason that pleases you) let us wave afriendly hand in the direction of that bold, bad policeman whosethoughts were not governed by the Book of Regulations which is issuedto all recruits, and who, in despite of the fact that he was enrolledamong the very legions of order, had that chaos in his soul which may"give birth to a Dancing Star. "

As to Mary--even ordinary, workaday politeness frowns on too abrupt adeparture from a lady, particularly one whom we have companioned thusdistantly from the careless simplicity of girlhood to the equallycareless but complex businesses of adolescence. The world is all beforeher, and her chronicler may not be her guide. She will have adventures, for everybody has. She will win through with them, for everybody does. She may even meet bolder and badder men than the policeman--Shall wethen detain her? I, for one, having urgent calls elsewhere, will saluteher fingers and raise my hat and stand aside, and you will do likewise, because it is my pleasure that you should. She will go forward, then, to do that which is pleasing to the gods, for less than that she cannotdo, and more is not to be expected of any one. 

 THUS FAR THE STORY OF MARY MAKEBELIEVE

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Complete List of Titles

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A MODERN BOOK OF CRITICISMS (81) Edited with an Introduction byLUDWIG LEWISOHN

ANDERSON, SHERWOOD (1876-)

Winesburg, Ohio, (104)

ANDREYEV, LEONID (1871-)

The Seven That Were Hanged and The Red Laugh (45) Introduction byTHOMAS SELTZER

ATHERTON, GERTRUDE (1859-)

Rezanov (71) Introduction by WILLIAM MARION REEDY

BALZAC, HONORE DE (1799-1850)

Short Stories (40)

BAUDELAIRE, PIERRE CHARLES (1821-1867)

His Prose and Poetry (70)

BEARDSLEY, THE ART OF AUBREY (1872-1898)

64 Black and White Reproductions (42) Introduction by ARTHUR SYMONS

BEERBOHM, MAX (1872-)

Zuleika Dobson (50) Introduction by FRANCIS HACKETT

BEST GHOST STORIES (73)

Introduction by ARTHUR B. REEVE

BEST HUMOROUS AMERICAN SHORT STORIES (87)

Edited with an Introduction by ALEXANDER JESSUP

BEST RUSSIAN SHORT STORIES (18)

Edited with an Introduction by THOMAS SELTZER

BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757-1827)

Poems (91) Edited with notes by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

BUTLER, SAMUEL (1835-1902)

The Way of All Flesh (13)

CABELL, JAMES BRANCH

Beyond Life (25) Introduction by GUY HOLT

CARPENTER, EDWARD (1844-)

Love's Coming of Age (51)

CHEKHOV, ANTON (1860-1904)

Rothschild's Fiddle and Thirteen Other Stories (31)

CHESTERTON, G. K. (1874-)

The Man Who Was Thursday (35)

CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE (99)

Edited with an Introduction by Dr. BENJ. HARROW

CRANE, STEPHEN (1870-)

Men, Women and Boats (102) Introduction by VINCENT STARRETT

D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE (1864-)

The Flame of Life (65)

The Triumph of Death (112) Introduction by BURTON RASCOE

DAVIDSON, JOHN

Poems (60)

DAUDET, ALPHONSE (1840-1897)

Sapho (85) In same volume Prevost's "Manon Lescaut"

DOSTOYEVSKY, FEDOR (1821-1881)

Poor People (10) Introduction by THOMAS SELTZER

DOWSON, ERNEST (1867-1900)

Poems and Prose (74) Introduction by ARTHUR SYMONS

DREISER, THEODORE

Free and Other Stories (50) Introduction by H. L. MENCKEN

DUNSANY, LORD (Edward John Plunkett) (1878-)

A Dreamer's Tales (34) Introduction by PADRIAC COLUM

Book of Wonder (43)

ELLIS, HAVELOCK (1859-)

The New Spirit (95) Introduction by the author

EVOLUTION IN MODERN THOUGHT (37)

A Symposium, including Essays by Haeckel, Thomson, Weismann, etc. 

FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE (1821-1880)

Madame Bovary (28)

The Temptation of St. Anthony (92) Translated by LAFCADIO HEARN

FLEMING, MARJORIE (1803-1811)

Marjorie Fleming's Book (93) Introduction by CLIFFORD SMYTH

FRANCE, ANATOLE (1844-)

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (22) Introduction by LAFCADIO HEARN

The Queen Pedauque (110) Introduction by JAMES BRANCH CABELL

The Red Lily (7)

Thais (67) Introduction by HENDRIK W. VAN LOON

FRENSSEN, GUSTAV (1863-)

John Uhl (101) Introduction by LUDWIG LEWISOHN

GAUTIER, THEOPHILE (1811-1872)

Mlle. De Maupin (53)

GEORGE, W. L. (1882-)

A Bed of Roses (75) Introduction by EDGAR SALTUS

GILBERT, W. S. (1836-1911)

The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers, (26)Introduction by CLARENCE DAY, Jr. 

GISSING, GEORGE, (1857-1903)

The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (46) Introduction by PAUL ELMERMORE

De GONCOURT, E. And J. (1822-1896) (1830-1870)

Renee Mauperin (76) Introduction by EMILE ZOLA

GORKY, MAXIM (1868-)

Creatures That Once Were Men and Four Other Stories (48)Introduction by G. K. CHESTERTON

HARDY, THOMAS (1840-)

The Mayor of Casterbridge (17) Introduction by JOYCE KILMER

HECHT, BEN

Erik Dorn (29) Introduction by BURTON RASCOE

HUDSON, W. H. (1862-)

Green Mansions (89) Introduction by JOHN GALSWORTHY

IBANEZ, VICENTE BLASCO (1867-)

The Cabin (69) Introduction by JOHN GARRETT UNDERHILL

IBSEN, HENRIK (1828-1906)

A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People (6); Hedda Gabler, Pillars of Society, The Master Builder (36) Introduction by H. L. MENCKEN

The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, The League of Youth (54)

JAMES, HENRY (1843-1916)

Daisy Miller and An International Episode (63) Introduction byWILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

KIPLING, RUDYARD (1865-)

Soldiers Three (3)

LATZKO, ANDREAS (1876-)

Men in War (88)

LAWRENCE, D. H. (1887-)

Sons and Lovers (109) Introduction by JOHN MACY

LE GALLIENNE, ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN POETRY (107) Edited with anintroduction by RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

LOTI, PIERRE (1850-)

Madame Chrysantheme (94)

MACY, JOHN (1877-)

The Spirit of American Literature (56)

MAETERLINCK, MAURICE (1862-)

A Miracle of St. Antony, Pelleas and Melisande, The Death ofTintagiles, Alladine and Palomides, Interior, The Intruder (11)

DeMAUPASSANT, GUY (1850-1893)

Love and Other Stories (72) Edited and translated with anIntroduction by MICHAEL MONAHAN

Mademoiselle Fifi, and Twelve Other Stories (8); Une Vie (57)Introduction by HENRY JAMES

MEREDITH, GEORGE (1828-1909)

Diana of the Crossways (14) Introduction by ARTHUR SYMONS

MOLIERE

Plays (78) Introduction by WALDO FRANK

MOORE, GEORGE (1853-)

Confessions of a Young Man (16) Introduction by FLOYD DELL

MORRISON, ARTHUR (1863-)

Tales of Mean Streets (100) Introduction by H. L. MENCKEN

NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH (1844-1900)

Thus Spake Zarathustra (9) Introduction by FRAU FOERSTER-NIETZSCHE

Beyond Good and Evil (20) Introduction by WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT

Genealogy of Morals (62)

O'NEILL, EUGENE (1888-)

The Moon of the Carribbees and Six Other Plays of the Sea (111)Introduction by GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

OUIDA

In a Winter City (24) Introduction by CARL VAN VECHTEN

PAINE, THOMAS (1737-1809)

Selections from the Writings of Thomas Paine (108) Edited with anIntroduction by CARL VAN DOREN

PATER, WALTER (1839-1894)

Marius the Epicurean (90)

The Renaissance (86) Introduction by ARTHUR SYMONS

PEPYS', SAMUEL; DIARY (103)

Condensed. Introduction by RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

PREVOST, ANTOINE FRANCOIS (1697-1763)

Manon Lescaut (85) In same volume with Daudet's Sapho

PSYCHOANALYSIS, AN OUTLINE OF (66)

A Symposium of the latest expressions by the leaders of the variousschools of the new psychology. Edited by J. S. VAN TESLAAR

RODIN, THE ART OF (1840-1917)

64 Black and White Reproductions (41) Introduction by LOUIS WEINBERG

SCHNITZLER, ARTHUR (1862-)

Anatol, Living Hours, The Green Cockatoo (32) Introduction by ASHLEYDUKES

Bertha Garlan (39)

SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR (1788-1860)

Studies in Pessimism (12) Introduction by T. B. SAUNDERS

SHAW, G. B. (1856-)

An Unsocial Socialist (15)

SINCLAIR, MAY

The Belfry (68)

STEPHENS, JAMES

Mary, Mary (30) Introduction by PADRIAC COLUM

STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (1850-1894)

Treasure Island (4)

STIRNER, MAX (Johann Caspar Schmidt) (1806-1859)

The Ego and His Own (49)

STRINDBERG, AUGUST (1849-1912)

Married (2) Introduction by THOMAS SELTZER

Miss Julie, The Creditor, The Stronger Woman, Motherly Love, Paria, Simoon (52)

SUDERMANN, HERMANN (1857-)

Dame Care (33)

SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909)

Poems (23) Introduction by ERNEST RHYS

THOMPSON, FRANCIS (1859-1907)

Complete Poems (38)

TOLSTOY, LEO (1828-1910)

Redemption and Two Other Plays (77) Introduction by ARTHUR HOPKINS

The Death of Ivan Ilyitch and Four Other Stories (64)

TURGENEV, IVAN (1818-1883)

Fathers and Sons (21) Introduction by THOMAS SELTZER

Smoke (80) Introduction by JOHN REED

VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM (1882-)

Ancient Man (105)

VILLON FRANCOIS (1431-1461)

Poems (58) Introduction by JOHN PAYNE

VOLTAIRE, (FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET) (1694-1778)

Candide (47) Introduction by PHILIP LITTELL

WELLS, H. G. (1866-)

Ann Veronica (27)

The War in the Air (5) New Preface by H. G. Wells for this edition

WHITMAN, WALT (1819-)

Poems (97) Introduction by CARL SANDBURG

WILDE, OSCAR (1859-1900)

An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance (84)

Dorian Gray (1)

Fairy Tales and Poems in Prose (61)

Intentions (96)

Poems (19)

Salome, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan (83)Introduction by EDGAR SALTUS

WILSON, WOODROW (1856-)

Selected Addresses and Public Papers (55) Edited with anintroduction by ALBERT BUSHNELL HART

WOMAN QUESTION, THE (59)

A Symposium, including Essays by Ellen Key, Havelock Ellis, G. LowesDickinson, etc. Edited by T. R. SMITH

YEATS, W. B. (1865-)

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (44)

Transcriber's Notes:

There are several misspellings in the text, such as eagnerness, Padriac. 

"deary" & "dearie" are both used. 

There are instances of missing capitals, such as 'alanna' and severalfirst words of sentences. 

There are several instances of missing punctuation. 

Mary's room is described as being "one square inch" in size in originaltext.